


Under Different Circumstances

by Pancake_Prince



Series: Circumstances [1]
Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Major spoilers for entire game, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, mostly Akira and Goro but others make larger cameo's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-03-31 18:45:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 47,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13981113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pancake_Prince/pseuds/Pancake_Prince
Summary: Akira Kurusu is left to find Shujin Academy by himself when the power goes out in the Sakura Household and Sojiro can't take him to meet the principal. Having only been in Shibuya one day, Akira inevitably gets lost. Luckily for him, the friendly stranger he bumps into is eager to help him find the way.Or, the one in which Akira meets Goro much earlier in the game and so certain events play out differently.





	1. 4/10

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first fic ever and I'm super nervous about it.  
> The perspectives change between Akira and Goro throughout the fic and hopefully I've made it clear enough whenever there's a switch.  
> 

 

Akira stirs awake at the sound of his alarm and promptly switches it off. Rubbing his eyes, he sits up and contemplates the events that had transpired in the Velvet Room.

_Igor. Caroline. Justine. Rehabilitation. Ruin. What the hell was it supposed to mean_ , Akira thought. It felt almost too real to be a dream, but then again, with what happened over the past twenty-four hours he was starting to wonder if someone had somehow slipped him some sort of long lasting hallucinogenic drug.

He reaches for his phone, unlocks it and finds the app with the red eye glaring up at him just as it had been the night before. He considered trying to delete it once more, but it seemed like he wasn’t getting rid of it any time soon. If any of what he dreamed of was true, chances were that this strange app was somehow connected too.

He gets up and changes from his loungewear into Shujin Academy’s school uniform, getting ready to go there with his new guardian, Sojiro Sakura. He picks out his toothbrush, toothpaste and towel from the storage box before heading downstairs, where he finds Sojiro saying something over the phone, clearly trying not to sound infuriated by his conversation.

“I’m sure there’s just a problem with the fuse box-,“ even though Akira couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, he knew that Sojiro was being cut off, “Are you sure you flipped the right switch...? Of course, you are. Alright, well I promised the kid that I’d take him to Shujin...” Sojiro looks up to find Akira waiting for a clearer explanation, “Hold on,” Sojiro says to the person on the other side of the phone and turns away from it while holding a hand over the device, “There’s some sort of emergency at my house. Normally, I would just suggest you get there yourself but given the circumstances I’m not sure if that's such a wise decision.”

Akira notices Sojiro’s clear conflict, and he can’t blame him for expecting the worst from him. Even if his trial was completely rigged against his favour, he still ended up being labelled a criminal and anyone would have trust issues with that. Then again, Akira also hoped that Sojiro wouldn’t look at him like he was a ticking bomb that could go off any minute with every glance, “It sounds urgent,” was all he could say.

Sojiro looks to the phone, then back at Akira and sighs, “Sorry but I really have to take care of this and I’m not sure just how long it’ll be. Here,” he throws some keys at Akira, who just about catches them mid-air, “If your trial really was as you claim it is, then I doubt you’ll be too much trouble. Get yourself to Shibuya by train and take the Ginza Line from there. I’ll know straight away if you go anywhere else,” Sojiro walks over to the door, picking up his hat from the counter where he left it earlier, “Oh and if I’m not back by the evening, make sure to close up, alright? Shops meant to be closed for today so there’s no reason to keep it open once you come back anyway,” with that, Sojiro hurries out of the coffee shop.

Akira was intrigued by what it was that was stopping Sojiro from taking him to Shujin. It sounded like some problem with electricity, as far as Akira could tell with the mention of a fuse box, but didn’t Sojiro live alone? That was the impression Akira had since no one opened the door when he rang it the day before.

Nonetheless, he does his regular morning routine in the cramped bathroom of Leblanc and gets some change ready for the train, since his pass would only start working tomorrow.

He quietly leaves the cafe and gets lost in his own thoughts about the Velvet Room and the mysterious app on his way to Yongen-Jaya station.

* * *

‘Have you heard? There was another accident with the subway a couple of days ago!’

‘Another? Isn’t that like the 3rd one this month already?’

‘Something weird's definitely going on’

‘How is no one taking any responsibility for it? Has the transportation minister said anything?’

* * *

Akira heads back towards the underground walkway of Shibuya station and finds himself looking at the sign for the JL line. The station wasn’t even that large so how was he getting so lost looking for the Ginza line?

He glances down at his phone to look at the time while walking ahead. At this rate he’d never even make it to Shujin at all and he’d get kicked out from Leblanc and back into juvie hall for the most trivial reason of all.

He looks up again but not quick enough and ends up bumping into another high school student. Akira could only tell he was a student by his uniform, a different one from his, although the briefcase and the gloves threw him off a little, “I’m sorry, I should’ve been looking-."

The student shakes his head and puts the phone that he’d been holding in his hand away, “No, the fault is all mine. My apologies, I should have been paying more attention to my surroundings than to my phone,” the student smiles.

“Right... uh, yeah, don’t worry about it,” Akira mumbles. _Smooth_ , he thought, and rubbed the back of his neck, one of his usual nervous ticks when he felt he was bringing too much attention to himself.

Before the silence between them could get any longer and any more awkward than it already was, Akira speaks up again, “I’m new here, and I’m trying to get to Shujin Academy. I know you can’t be from the same school, but would you happen to know how I could get to the Ginza line?”

“Ginza line?” The student repeats for confirmation. Akira gives a curt nod and a hum, and the student turns around as if he himself were trying to figure out where he was. How absorbed in his phone was this student anyway? Then again, Akira was in no place to judge him for that,

“I believe that you just go down those stairs and turn left. However, I rarely go by that route, so you may want to check that with someone other than myself.”

“Well, you’ve been more helpful than anyone else around here,” Akira says as a throw away comment he didn’t intend to say aloud in the first place, but it causes the student to chuckle lightly nevertheless.

“I can’t help but assume that you’ve only begun to get acquainted with city life recently? Then I should warn you before you find this out for yourself, if you haven’t already that is. The people around here tend to be rather.... self-absorbed,” the student explains, just as some other stranger almost bumps into them for those very reasons. 

“Are you not from around here either?” Akira asks, a little curious about the student, although he was really cutting it close with the time. He hoped he could trust him with the directions he gave him.

“I suppose in a way I’m not,” the student muses, his expression becoming a lot more sombre. The statement itself confuses and intrigues Akira, but he doesn’t let it show on his face. The student quickly shakes his head and smiles again, “I’ve lived here for quite some time now, but I understand what it’s like coming in from the outside,” he explains himself, “Oh where are my manners, I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Goro Akechi.”

“Akira Kurusu,” Akira replies, “No offence though, but isn’t saying that the people of Shibuya are self-absorbed when you walked into me because you were on your phone a little...” Akira trails off, expecting Akechi to fill out the blanks for him.

“Hypocritical?” Akechi complies, and Akira once again replies with a curt nod, “I suppose that would just mean that I have truly integrated with this city after all.”

“Oh, sorry, I wasn’t trying to be rude, just thought you might find the irony funny,” Akira tries to reassure him, but Akechi still raises an eyebrow at him.

“You assume I'll find the irony of what I have said amusing despite only having met me for the first time today?” Akechi asks bluntly, and Akira almost wishes he could take everything back. First person he’d met since his trial who was actually nice to him and he was being an ass to him. _Way to make friends_ , Akira thought.

Akechi surprises him by chuckling once more, “I must say, you intrigue me, Kurusu-san. Perhaps we could talk some other time?”

“If the occasion arises,” Akira replies, and the sound of an announcement coming out from one of the platforms brings him back from wherever his conversation with Akechi had taken him. Akira felt like it wasn’t Shibuya’s Station Square.

He pulls out his phone and checks the time once again, slowly beginning to regret prolonging the impromptu conversation. With how late he was, it was starting to look like the occasion to talk to Akechi would never come, unless he was for some absurd reason willing to visit him in juvie hall, “I seriously have to go though. Thanks for the help and, uh, well, I can’t say I’m sorry for bumping into you anymore now.”

Akechi smiles, “I feel the same way too. Good luck with finding the platform,” he replies, and Akira runs off, too far away to hear Akechi muttering as he pulls out his phone to type the name of one of the train engineers into the Metaverse app, “First Niijima-chan, now this boy... the students of Shujin are truly quite interesting...”


	2. 4/15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He'd been at Shujin for less than a week and already Akira was getting himself involved with all the wrong people.  
> Needing a break, Akira wanders around Shibuya late at night and runs into the last person he expected to see ever again.

Despite all of the events that had happened that day, Shiho jumping off the roof, being threatened with expulsion, going to Kamoshida’s palace and having Ann awaken to her persona, Akira was still full of energy. Morgana had been urging him to rest since they left the Metaverse knowing just how busy they'd be over the coming days, but Akira found that he wasn’t at all tired, and if anything was hoping to avoid any unexpected visits to the Velvet Room.

He walks up to his room after having brought a glass of water with him only to find Morgana sound asleep in his bed. He quickly realises that if there was any time to escape his room, it would be now. Sojiro had already locked up but Akira still had the spare keys that Sojiro conveniently never asked to return since the first full day he’d been in the city.

Quietly, he pulls on a jacket, finds the spare keys, and walks downstairs, looking back at Morgana with each creak that the stairs made to ensure that he hadn’t woken him up.

Akira holds the bell in place as he opens the door to the cafe to stop it from jingling while he was still in the building and leaves the cafe. He locks the door before heading over to the station with only his phone, wallet, keys, and train pass on him. Ignoring the stares he was receiving by being the youngest unaccompanied person at the station at such a late hour, he steps onto the train headed for Shibuya, quickly becoming lost in thought as the train made its way to the centre of the city.

One way or another, he ends up thinking back to his encounter with Akechi, and how he’d warned him about how self-absorbed the people in Tokyo were. Akira had definitely noticed it when he first overheard some people, especially those at school, but the more time he ended up spending with Ryuji, Morgana, and now even Ann, the more he realised that the selfishness that people seemed to accuse them of grew from other people’s selfishness or their own selflessness. Or at least that seemed to be the case for Ryuji and Ann, Akira couldn’t say the same for Morgana.

Then again who could blame an amnesiac cat who believed he could become human again by going into the cognitive world for putting himself first.

 _Ryuji probably would_ , Akira thought.

Then the question remained whether Akechi had been unfortunate enough to have only encountered people whose self-centred behaviour could not be attributed to anything other than selfishness or whether he was just a lonely kid who couldn’t get to know people beyond a simple greeting. He seemed nice enough when Akira talked to him, if maybe a little pretentious and full of himself.

The intercom announcing Shibuya Station snaps Akira out of his train of thought, and only paying attention to his immediate surroundings, he gets off the train and makes his way towards Central Street.

He ends up walking up and down the street, not having planned this out at all, trying to decide on where to go. There was a gym down one of the alleys, but he didn’t have a membership nor did he want to get one, any movies playing in the cinema had already started and had been playing for long enough that Akira would just be confused by the plot, which only really left him with dining options. Big Bang burger was too open spaced for how pensive he was feeling, and the beef bowl place looked like it was swarming with old men in business suits from the outside, which left Akira with the out of the way diner, the perfect place to brood in solitude.

He walks up the stairs of diner and even finds an empty booth for himself before he notices a mop of hair sticking out from one of the booths, and immediately after that, the pleasant boy who the hair belonged to. Akira hesitates to greet him since his main objective for the night was to finally have some time alone away from personas, cognitions, and talking cats. Although, Akechi had no idea about the Metaverse, as far as Akira was aware, and might prove to be a welcome distraction. Then again, he did seem to be busy writing something, with random pieces of paper scattered around the table.

However, it seemed that before Akira could make up his mind, fate had done it for him as Akechi looks up and locks eyes with him. Akechi gives him a warm smile and motions for him to come over and sit with him. Akira complies and walks over, sliding into the booth facing Akechi,

“This is rather peculiar. Just a couple of hours ago I was wondering if I’d run into you again,” Akechi admits, but of course Akira wouldn’t tell him that he’d been thinking the same. _Definitely not weird_ , “And here you are, showing up to a diner I rarely frequent on the same day as me.” Akira would definitely not tell him that this was his first time in the diner. _Not in the slightest bit weird_ , “Then again, even when I do have the time to do something, I tend to stay at home,” Akechi thinks aloud and Akira doesn’t inform him that he was technically supposed to be home right now. _Okay, maybe the coincidences were getting a little weird_ , “What brings you here?”

“Escapism,” is all Akira is willing to admit, but with the look Akechi gives him that clearly indicated that he wanted to hear more, Akira feels compelled to give him a better answer, “I’ve been going to this new school for less than a week and it’s already been feeling... overwhelming.”

Without stopping to speak, Akechi continues writing on his piece of paper, “I feel as though I should come clean about something before discussing this with you further,” Akechi slowly and carefully sets down his pen before leaning over the table a little more and looking directly at Akira, “After talking to you at the station I was intrigued by you, and since my line of work allows me to do so, I decided to look you up. Could you being overwhelmed have anything to do with your criminal record? Do you have anyone you know to talk about it?”

Despite being a little upset about Akechi snooping around his past and feeling almost like he was being interrogated, Akira couldn’t help but smirk, “Actually that might be part of the problem. One of the teachers leaked the info to a couple of people on the volleyball team and now the entire student body knows. Through all of the rumours and miscommunication my crimes seem to range from petty theft to first degree murder.”

It was at that moment that the waitress decided to show up to take Akiras order, and although she was clearly trying her best to be professional, Akira could tell from her general demeanour that she was concerned for her own safety. He promptly orders a coffee while Akechi asks for a refill of his. As soon as the waitress leaves, Akira notices that the whole time Akechi had been struggling not to smirk.

“You planned that, didn’t you?” Akira asks, eyes narrowing.

Akechi smiles again, but it’s different from before, it almost looks troublesome, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kurusu-kun,” Akechi says in his most endearing voice, but promptly goes back to the subject at hand to stop Akira from responding further, “I understand that it must be quite stressful to hear that. Although having looked at your file, a lot about it doesn’t seem quite right. For one, there’s never a mention of any victim, and the key witness seems to have a different story depending on who asked her. Then there’s the matter of the trial-.“

“What are you, a detective?” Akira interrupts him, growing tiresome of hearing the same things over and over again, as if he hadn’t gone through all of it himself.

“As a matter of fact...” Akechi trails off.

“Wait, seriously? Actually, that explains how you know so much about me,” Akira answers himself, understanding how Akechi had access to his file in the first place, “But aren’t you a little young to be working for the police?” Akira asks, raising an eyebrow.

“It.... it’s a complex situation. Of course, I’m only an amateur detective, and strictly speaking I only work alongside the police, not for them,” Akechi explains and it was obvious from his expression that Akira didn’t believe him. Somehow, he was almost happy to be talking to someone who seemed more interested in his life than trying to get anything that would result in a scandal or front-page news from him, “Have you heard about the mental shutdowns happening recently?” Akira nods, and Akechi continues, “After I was able to solve multiple minor cases, the SIU office requested that I specifically look into that case.”

“Is that what you’re working on now?” Akira asks, nodding to the pieces of paper in front of him, but Akechi shakes his head and smiles again.

“Oh no, this is merely school work. Because of my detective work and consequent interviews, my school lets me skip classes as long as I stay on top of work and get good grades. I had some free time this evening and struggled to concentrate in my home, so I came here to try to finish it.”

“And your parents are fine with it?” Akira asks, finding it hard to believe that any parent would let their kid over work themselves like this, or more importantly, let them out into Shibuya this late. Then again, he wasn’t one to talk.

Akira looks up from the papers and notices the conflicted look Akechi had on his face. _Did I say something wrong?_

“My parents... they’re a difficult subject to say the least... but the easiest answer would be that they aren’t around to tell me whether what I’m doing is healthy for me or not.”

Akira wants to ask him more about that but understands that there was a limit. After all this was only the second time they’d talked but it almost felt like they’d known each other for years. Maybe he’d ask Akechi some other time, if they encountered one another like this again.

The coffee arrives just before the silence between the two went from sombre into awkward, and the two of them bring their cups to their lips and sip on their coffee as soon as the waitress leaves.

The coffee cups make district clinking noises as they hit the plates under them, and Akechi is the first to break the silence, “I apologise. I shouldn’t have probed into your life like that without your permission.”

Akira shrugs it off, by now expecting everyone he met to know his back story almost better than he did, “You would’ve found out eventually whether you did or not.... if we were to meet up more often anyway.”

“I would like that,” Akechi states and pulls out his phone, “I ended up thinking about our last conversation far more than I would like to admit, and I think it would be a shame if we were unable to speak again.”

Akira wasn’t how he was supposed to feel anymore. On one hand, Akechi had forgiven him for delving into Akira’s past without revealing much of his own, on the other hand, his apology did seem genuine and Akira did want to talk to him more, if for nothing other than escaping the realities of his school and whatever it was that himself, Ryuji, Morgana and Ann were getting involved in.

Akira pulls out his own phone, “What’s your number and chat ID then? Unless you were hoping that fate would throw us together again?”

Akechi grins, “As nice as a thought that is, Tokyo is quite a large city. The chances of the two of us finding each other any time soon by accident are very small.”

They spent the rest of their evening complaining about school and all the things they deemed was unnecessary or obvious in their curriculums.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll most likely be updating this every other day, but I do have exams and stuff coming up in about a month so I apologise in advance if I can't always update this like I plan to.  
> But thank you everyone for all of your kind and encouraging words, I hope that I won't let any of you down!


	3. 5/5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A volleyball coach and former olympic medalist confesses to abusing and harrasing his students out of nowhere. Sensing some complications approaching, Goro goes to speak with his real boss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well since I know I'll be too busy tomorrow to post anything, I've decided to post this chapter a few hours earlier than I intended. In any case, I hope you enjoy it

* * *

 ‘Isn’t that a Shujin student?’

‘Oh yeah, there was some PE teacher or something from there who was abusing the volleyball team, right?’

‘He was harassing the girls too.’

‘I heard he was an Olympic medallist before that.’

‘There’s some other rumour going around that some students actually stole his heart and made him confess.’

‘I’m pretty sure that it’s just a made-up story based on some anime or something. You can’t steal someone’s heart in the real world.’

* * *

As the elevator doors open to the buffet, Goro Akechi hears a man giving orders to his subordinates,

“Don’t bother with them,” the man enters the elevator and presses the button for the ground floor, followed by some other men, all in suits and sunglasses.

The man clearly acknowledges Goro’s presence, as do his subordinates. While the man mostly ignores him, the subordinates awkwardly look at each other as if they were expecting their boss to get the boy to leave. However, no attempt was made, and they rode the elevator to the ground floor in silence.

When the elevator reaches the ground floor, the man calmly steps out, followed by his subordinates and of course, Goro himself.

“All of you, go back to the office. I will speak with you all after I have dealt with a certain... issue,” the man says ominously, and while a few of the subordinates linger, they eventually all leave. The man doesn’t turn around, expecting Goro to hear him perfectly, “I thought I told you not to contact me during the day. How did you know I would be here?”

“I thought that you of all people would know not to underestimate me. I am a detective after all,” Goro replies, not looking directly at the man, “you’ve been ignoring my calls and so I decided that a direct approach was necessary,” Of course Goro himself dreaded making those calls, but it was necessary if any of his suspicions may have been correct, “Now, I believe that it would be in both of our best interests if we didn’t discuss our dealings out in an open space such as this. After all, wouldn’t people find it odd to see the detective prince talking to Masayoshi Shido? Who knows what the public might assume.”

Shido struggles to maintain a calm demeanour when Goro had clearly been trying to irritate him, “You should know better than to threaten me.”

Goro can’t stop himself from smirking at the threat. He considered getting any sort of emotional response, especially a negative one from Shido, a win, “You misunderstand, that was merely a suggestion rather than a threat.”

“...there will be a black car waiting for you outside in ten minutes. I’m sure that by now you know not to be followed,” is Shido’s only reply as he walks away from Goro and leaves the building.

Nonetheless, he decides to stay out of sight and pulls out his phone as he leans against a wall away from prying eyes. Before he manages to unlock his phone, his attention is caught by the obnoxiously loud, blonde boy who had just left the elevator and his two friends.

“Oh man, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat again!” He announces as the group make their way to the exit, “Still though, it would’ve been slightly better if that asshole and his cronies hadn’t stopped us at the elevator. Who the hell did that guy think he was?”

Goro was convinced they were talking about Shido. But the longer he looked at them, the more he became convinced that he knew the quieter of the two boys. The other thing he was intrigued by was just how much that boys bag was moving. _What did he have in there, some kind of animal?_

“You’re getting far too worked up over this,” the other boy replies, and it’s when he hears his voice that Goro’s convinced that it belonged none one other than Akira Kurusu. Perhaps fate really was desperate to have them meet.

Goro almost considered going up to him and greeting him, but he wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place. Not to mention he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be introduced to the vulgar boy that he seemed to be with at the moment. The girl seemed nice enough.

“What’s done is done. I doubt you’ll run into him again anyway. If his own subordinates are acting like that on his behalf, then he’s probably too high ranking to hang about any of the places you normally go to,” the girl replies, and Kurusu laughs. Goro could’ve sworn he heard a second laugh coming from his bag too.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” The blonde boy shouts, clearly upset by that comment, but his annoyance fades quickly, “Actually, I’ll take it as a compliment. I wouldn’t want to be hanging out in the same places that a pretentious douche like him would.”

Finally, the three of them leave and Goro feels himself relax, causing him to only notice now just how tense he’d been. Surely, he would’ve been able to talk his way out if Kurusu had noticed him, so why was he so stressed?

Or maybe the source of his stress wasn't the possibility of being caught by Kurusu. Either way, Goro no longer has the time to consider it as he had to make his way to his meeting with Shido. One which he dreaded, but it had to be done.

* * *

“I assume you have a good reason for interrupting me like this?” Shido asks from his office chair after having cleared everyone out from his office, leaving only Goro standing in front of him.

“Have you heard about Shujin Academy?” Goro asks, getting straight to the point, “three days ago a volleyball coach there confessed to abusing and sexually harassing his students in front of the entire school. Of course, the police have taken him in for questioning, but I haven’t had the opportunity to talk to him myself yet.”

At first, Shido is almost annoyed by why Goro was bothering him so much with something that seemed so insignificant and almost berates the boy. Upon further consideration, he realises that Goro did have some intelligence after all and wouldn’t risk meeting him had it not been urgent. He lets the detective continue, expecting Goro to understand his continued silence as a signal, which Goro hastily picks up on.

“Before this, the volleyball coach seemed to have received some sort of calling card and threatened anyone who he believed was responsible for it. Anyone else may have dismissed the card as an unsavoury joke, but the volleyball coach overreacted. In the following days he only showed up to the school once, and that was in order to confess and resign,” Goro explains further, “One could think of this as a sudden change of heart, wouldn’t you agree?”

Shido hums in thought, contemplating what Goro was saying, “You’re suggesting that there is someone else who is able to use the Metaverse. In which case, I think you know what you have to do.”

Goro shakes his head, “No. I don’t think that disposing of them would be a wise move. If there is someone else, or maybe even a group of individuals who are able to enter the cognitive world, do you not think they could be of use to further your agenda?”

“Perhaps you’re right. But from the sound of it, you don’t know who these people are or how exactly they operate,” Shido says, and turns away from Goro, “officially, you’re investigating the mental shutdown cases, correct? I want you to move your investigation to these people without raising too much suspicion and find out who they are and what their objectives are. It shouldn’t be too hard given that both involve the cognitive world.”

“Of course. I’ll contact you if I get any more details.”

“Good. In the meantime, I’ve gotten another request from Okumura. It should be easy enough for you to handle.”

Goro stops himself from sighing and pulls out his phone, “I’ll need a name.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, a chapter from Goro's perspective! Its a little on the shorter side but I promise to make it up to all of you soon!


	4. 5/7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What was it that people said? Third time's the charm? That seemed to be the pattern Akira's and Akechi's chance encounters were following.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for all the wonderful feedback! It seriously means so much that you guys are enjoying this!

Ann and Ryuji say their goodbyes after their conversation about Mementos. Since leaving the station, Akira couldn’t help but feel like someone had been watching them from afar. He wasn’t too concerned though, since none of what the group were saying would’ve made sense to anyone anyway. Worst case they could’ve acted like they were talking about a film or anime they all recently watched together.

“Aren’t we heading home now? I’m pretty tired after that trip. What about you?” Morgana asks, snapping Akira out from his thoughts.

“Hm? Oh, not particularly. Not like the last time we left the Metaverse anyway. Is that the difference between Mementos and a Palace?” Akira asks, surprised by his own energy.

Morgana appears to shake his head. It was a little harder to tell when he was in cat form and Akira was still only just getting used to it, “Not in my experience. Maybe it’s got something to do with how you’re able to have multiple personas? Or it could be that we didn’t fight that many shadows and you seemed to stick to using either your knife or gun while the rest of us used magic attacks.”

Akira nods and pulls out his phone to look at the time, “I might stay in Shibuya for a bit longer, but if you’re tired I don’t mind going back to Leblanc.”

Morgana hums in thought, which prompted Akira to wonder how a cat was capable of doing such a thing in the first place (then again, what even were the mechanics of hearing Morgana speak in the first place), but eventually, he gives Akira a straight answer, “No, it’s alright. I should be able to make my way back on my own... somehow. After all, I handled myself just fine in the Metaverse without your guys’ help, how much harder could the real world be?” Morgana jumps off the wall and onto the pavement, “Don’t come back too late, I doubt Sojiro would be too happy about that.”

“If you get lost then we’ll come looking for you in Mementos,” Akira suggests. He looks up from the cat and gazes at the familiar figure of the detective prince standing underneath a tree, scrolling through his phone. Could he be the reason Akira thought he was being followed? No, from where Akira was standing, he would’ve seen Akechi while talking to Ryuji. He must’ve only showed up to the Station square while he was talking to Morgana.

Morgana. His cat. The cat that only himself, Ann and Ryuji could understand. The cat that he had a conversation with, while clearly looking at him, in a normal tone of voice. Akira started thanking whatever god may have been listening that Akechi didn't seem to see Akira this whole time, unlike the strangers that were giving him questionable looks.

Akira ignores those looks and walks over to Akechi who seemed to be texting someone, “You waiting on some date?”

If Akechi was surprised, he didn’t show it. Instead, he locks his phone and looks up from it to Akira, smirking, “Your implication being that I have time for such matters?”

“You have the time for a food blog, your regular blog, Instagram and Twitter while shit talking crappy politicians on TV, going to cram school, and conducting your own investigation on the mental shutdown cases, so you tell me,” Akira replies bluntly while trying not to grin from the mild surprise showing on Akechi’s face in the form of a raised eyebrow.

“Should I be flattered or concerned by the fact that you clearly took your time researching me? At least one of those isn’t common knowledge unless you’re a particularly dedicated fan, or a stalker.”

“Maybe I’m both,” Akira smirks, which told Akechi that he clearly wasn’t being serious, “You looked me up, I figured it was only fair if I did the same. Of course, I didn’t have all the resources that you did.”

This time it’s Akira’s turn to be surprised when Akechi laughs. It’s a genuine laugh however, not like the one he used in the interviews that Akira found on YouTube while researching the boy, “With each conversation we have I’m uncertain whether us walking into each other was fate or just bad luck.”

“Bad?” Akira raises an eyebrow, “I thought you enjoyed our conversations. Or did I read that completely wrong?”

Akechi shakes his head, “You misunderstand. Before we met, I was already quite busy with interviews, detective work and of course school work, but whenever I ask myself questions involving any of these I find that I wonder how you would reply in those situations.”

“So, you find me distracting, huh?” Akira asks in a flirtatious voice, his grin growing when he sees that he managed to make the detective blush. He was really starting to enjoy getting Akechi to show his true feelings.

“I-I... that’s not how I meant it,” Akechi stammers out, which of course doesn’t help his case against Akira, who grins in return, “Anyway, was your purpose here just to get some embarrassing statement out of me?”

“Nope. But it was definitely worth it,” Akira replies, his shit-eating grin fading slowly but he was still clearly soaking in his victory over Akechi, “I was just here in Shibuya, and when I noticed that you were here too, I got curious. That’s all.”

“You are aware that I gave you my contact details, are you not?” Akechi asks, but Akira wasn’t sure how to reply without stammering his response and embarrassing himself.

Truth was, he’d been wanting to text Akechi for quite some time now, but every time he tried to get got incredibly nervous and didn’t know how to start a conversation. Akechi was always so formal, was he expecting the same from Akira over text? Or would he have preferred if Akira just texted him like he would anyone else? But the problem with that was that everyone seemed to text him first and gave him little chance to give them a proper reply over text, so it’s not like he had great experience with starting conversations.

The other problem was that he didn’t have a lot of time when Morgana wasn’t looking over his shoulder whenever he texted someone, but there’s no way he could explain why his cat reading his texts was a problem.

“Texts aren’t the same,” Akira finally decides on saying, “Like this, I can be genuine, and I can tell if what you’re saying is true.”

“What if I’ve been lying to you this whole time?”

“Then I guess I'll have to to stick around to find that out for myself,” Akira smiles and pulls out his phone, “But if you’re really that starved for a conversation with another human over text...” he trails off as he quickly types something into his phone, “there,” he says, looking up and Akechi’s phone buzzes.

Akechi pulls out his phone and smiles at the text he received,

‘ **Besides, your laughing and blushing is enough to telling me how much of this is true** ’

“As nice as it is to be able to communicate with one another at any given moment, I agree that it’s different from talking to someone in real life. Of course, beyond these chance encounters we haven’t really had a chance to talk,” Akechi replies, trying his best to hide the smile that was trying to break on his face.

“If you’re suggesting we actually go and do something then I’m game. With all the research you’ve done on me, shouldn’t you of all people know how much free time I’ve got on my hands?” Akira smirks, since after this whole business with Kamoshida he doubted anything new would pop up suddenly. Although, Kamoshida’s palace did quite literally pop up out of nowhere.

Akechi chuckles, “Nevertheless, it would still be rude to assume that you are available and plan something out without your consent,” he looks down on his phone and pulls up his calendar, “Would you perhaps be free the Friday after next? It appears as though I have nothing planned for then,” he looks up only to find Akira looking knowingly at him, “I will take that as confirmation then,” he types in his meeting with Akira, “you can decide on what we can do.”

“Why me?! I only moved here like a month ago, I’ve barely even gone outside of my school, the place I'm staying at and Shibuya. Shouldn’t you be the one showing me around town?” Akira argues, but Akechi shakes his head.

“I’m interested in your thought process. If you have truly done your research and you know when I'm being honest then I’d like to know what it is you think I’ll truly enjoy,” Akechi notices that Akira still wasn’t convinced that leaving him to figure out where they would be going for... well, whatever it was they were going to be going to, and decides on a compromise, “I promise that I will pick the location the next time we meet.”

“Oh, so you already think there’s a next time, huh?” Akira asks, once again in his flirtatious tone. However, Akechi doesn’t fall for it this time and simply sighs.

“You’re right, if you’re just going to be crude then I might be getting ahead of myself,” Akechi begins walking off, but Akira quickly folds and runs after him.

“Fine, I take it back!”

Akechi stops and tilts his head back enough for Akira to see his smirk, “I see I'm not the only one who's starved for human attention.”

Akira was grateful that Akechi had already turned and walked away, not noticing his blush. He barely knew this boy and yet Akira already wanted to spend as much time as he could with him, playing the odd mind games they seemed to enjoy the most.

Akira definitely wouldn’t mind a second date with Goro Akechi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stalker becomes the stalkee!  
> For any of those wondering, it's Yusuke who's making Akira feel like he's being stalked (and he technically wouldn't be that wrong either.)


	5. 5/20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira struggles to find a suitable location for his and Akechi's... date? He wanted to say date.

Akira taps the side of the phone he held inside his pocket while not paying any attention to the teacher. Even when he tried to do it, he couldn’t. There was too much on his mind.

For one, the Phantom Thieves still hadn’t found their new target and Ryuji was starting to get restless, which was never a good thing, but that was the least of Akira’s problems. Today he was supposed to be meeting up with Akechi and he still had no idea where they could go.

He spent most of his classes trying to come up with some place, but nothing seemed right. He considered asking Ryuji, but he didn’t want his best friend getting involved. The same applied to Morgana. The two of them were too curious for their own good and would end up messing up any chances he had of building a good relationship with Akechi.

Besides, they would probably both think that Akechi was pretentious as hell. Which wouldn’t be an incorrect assumption, but part of the reason Akira liked talking to Akechi was because he was quickly realising that the pretentiousness was a form of a defence mechanism. The complicated character of Goro Akechi intrigued Akira to no end.

That only left Ann. She could get nosy too if the subject interested her enough, and there’s no way this wouldn’t. But maybe if Akira kept the details to a minimum and asked her to keep quiet then it would all turn out for the best...

He probably would’ve been better asking Sojiro of all people. At least he didn’t ask questions.

He pulls out his phone, keeping it under the desk, grateful that even Morgana found the class boring enough to have fallen asleep. He quickly types out his text with his left hand while keeping a pencil in his right, pretending to take notes.

> Akira: **You know Tokyo quite well by now, right?**
> 
> Ann: **Yeah.**
> 
> Ann: **Anything you need to know?**
> 
> Akira: **There’s this person I keep on bumping into, and we finally decided to hang out, but they asked me to decide on the place.**
> 
> Akira: **But the only place I know is the ramen place Ryuji took me to last week.**
> 
> Ann: **You don’t think they’ll like it?**
> 
> Akira: **Not their style**

Then again, Akechi did have that food blog.

> Akira: **Scratch that. I just feel like it’s not the kind of place I’m going for with this**.
> 
> Akira: **Any ideas?**
> 
> **...**

It’s quite a while before Ann answers him, to the point where Akira looks up from his phone and up to her to make sure she didn’t fall asleep from boredom herself. He could see that her fingers were hovering above the touch keyboard of her phone , as if she were struggling to find the right words to type out.

> Ann: **Is this like a date thing or...?**

Now it was Akira’s turn to take his time to reply. It was a date, right? Was that what Akechi was expecting? Or would he be surprised to find that Akira thought of it that way? Did Akira want it to be a date?

The more he thought about it, the more he realised just how much he wouldn’t mind if it were a date. He definitely wouldn’t mind if Akechi wanted and expected it to be a date.

Although, he also didn’t want to assume the completely wrong thing and end up scaring the boy off.

> Akira: **It’s... complicated.**
> 
> Ann: **?**
> 
> Akira: **We only talked for a bit, and I guess I want it to be a date, but they never really said that it would be a date.**
> 
> Akira: **They might’ve implied it though.**
> 
> Ann: **You’re right, that is complicated.**
> 
> Akira: **Which is why I’m struggling.**
> 
> Akira: **How do you go somewhere that could be either taken as a date or just as a way to hang out?**
> 
> Ann: **It would help if you told me who this person was you know.**
> 
> Akira: **I don’t think you’d know them. They don’t go to our school.**

That part Akira was lying about. He knew that Ann liked to keep up with the newest idols, meaning that she surely would’ve known about the Ace Detective Prince Goro Akechi. But if he told her that it’s him she’d probably freak out and their conversation would derail entirely.

> Ann: **Hm, what about the park?**
> 
> Ann: **Inokashira Park** **I mean.**
> 
> Ann: **After all, you and I went there just as friends, but in certain areas there’s couples and stuff around.**
> 
> Ann: **Plus, if you figure out what it is the two of you want, then there’s loads of things around the park you can do as either friends or a couple.**
> 
> Akira: **That’s not a bad idea.**
> 
> Akira: **I might go there then.**
> 
> Akira: **Thanks. I owe you one.**
> 
> Ann: **Just tell me how it goes later, and we’ll call it even ;)**
> 
> Akira: **Oh, one more thing**
> 
> Ann: **Don’t tell Ryuji?**
> 
> Ann: **Don’t worry, I’ll let you break the news to him whenever you’re ready**

* * *

Akira had gone home immediately after school and had just enough time to quickly greet Sojiro before he went up the stairs into his attic, taking two steps at a time. He dumps his bag on the table, which resulted in it squealing and quickly reminded him of the cat that had been residing in there for quite some time.

“Hey! What was that for?!” Morgana asks as he slipped out from the bag.

“Sorry, I forgot you were in there.”

Morgana shakes his head, “Well, you’re lucky I’m so tough, otherwise I might’ve gone complaining to Sojiro about you.”

“And say what? ‘The criminal living in your attic is secretly a phantom thief who buys fake weapons and weird medicine off of questionable people at best?’” Akira suggests with a smirk, “I’m pretty sure Boss will just assume you’re hungry.”

Morgana growls but knows to stop when he’s lost against Akira, “Judging by your behaviour earlier, I’d say you’re distracted,” he points out, tone taking a complete 180 from the last time he spoke, “Is something bothering you?”

_The possibility that a certain high school detective may have been flirting with me and may have suggested that we go on a date but having to live with the growing fear that I may have been imagining things_. That was certainly one of his worries.

“ _Someone_ ,” he emphasizes, it’s all the information Akira provides, but he stops pacing, only realising that he’d been doing it now, and turns to the monster/cat. He had to make sure that Morgana wouldn’t follow him to Inokashira but asking him to stay behind in the attic would only make him more suspicious. He had to keep Morgana distracted, “Could you do me a favour?”

“What is it?” Morgana asks eagerly.

“Well...” What could Akira ask Morgana to do that he himself couldn’t? One thing quickly came to mind, “Remember Iwai?”

“The weapons dealer? What about him?”

“I’m worried that he might be hiding something, something bad. I’ve already got a criminal record so there’s no telling what would happen if I get caught by the wrong people in the wrong crowd,” Akira makes up on the spot. It wasn’t a complete lie. He already had an inkling that Iwai used to be part of a gang, but Akira was planning on waiting till Iwai admitted to that himself. This worked too.

Morgana hums, “You want me to spy on him, don’t you?” Akira nods, “It’ll be easier if you take me to Shibuya, although if you’re worried then you can leave me at the station. I’d rather not have to come back here on my own though. Last time I almost got run over by a car.”

Akira tried to hide his smirk at the irony of that, “How about I drop you off at the station this evening then go make myself busy elsewhere and come back for you around midnight?”

Morgana nods, “sounds like a plan. Got any ideas on how to bide your time?”

“I’m sure I’ll come up with something.” 

* * *

He’d spent the rest of his afternoon half reading, half pretending to read a book down in the cafe, while texting Akechi at the same time. By the time of his maybe-date was supposed to start, he was wearing his casual clothing while sitting on a bench at the park, reading over his conversation with Akechi to make sure he hadn’t gotten one of the details wrong. Akechi’s current tardiness was something that Akira didn’t expect from someone who seemed to be extremely well mannered.

> Akira: **you haven’t forgotten about our deal, have you?**
> 
> Akechi: **That depends on whether you’re meeting our terms.**
> 
> Akechi: **Or have you accepted defeat?**
> 
> Kurusu: **Of course not.**
> 
> Kurusu: **But you have to figure out where and when we’re meeting.**
> 
> Akechi: **You’re giving me a puzzle?**
> 
> Kurusu: **If you’re as good a detective as everyone says, you should be able to figure this out quite easily.**

Akira ended up sending him the coordinates of the park bench and a riddle about the number 7. It wasn’t anything complicated, but he guessed that Akechi would enjoy the added challenge to this... Akira called it a meeting for now. Although he’d already been waiting around for ten minutes. Maybe Akechi’s skills were in fact overrated.

He was happy to be proved wrong when he looked up to find Akechi still in his school uniform with his briefcase in one hand, “I apologise for being so late. I was unexpectedly pulled into a meeting about a case I’ve been working on and so I didn’t even have time to go to my house yet.”

“It’s fine. At least you got my riddle,” Akira grins.

“It was simple enough,” Akechi says, but Akira expected as much, “Although, I feel like I should admit that I did cheat.”

“You didn’t google any of it, did you?”

Akechi shakes his head, “No, I knew that you wanted to meet at seven and I knew that the other number was a set of coordinates. However, I also noticed that you didn’t turn off your location services and decided to use those instead,” now it was Akechi’s turn to smile when he saw the look of betrayal flash past Akira’s face.

“The-... I-.... goddammit,” He stutters out, “At least you admitted to it.”

“Don’t misunderstand, I did enjoy the thought that you put into it,” Akechi replies quickly, thinking that he may have somehow hurt Akira’s feelings. Instead, the other boy smiles.

“I’m glad you liked it.”

“Mm,” Akechi hums, “Shall we take a walk then? I gather that this was your plan, correct?”

Akira nods, “I’ve only been here once before but even then, I didn’t get much of a chance to see the rest of it. My friend recommended that I see what the rest of the park has to offer,” he doesn’t go into the details of why said friend had recommended he see the park with Akechi. He didn’t need to know about that yet.

* * *

The two of them start their walk in silence, and while Goro enjoyed this he was mostly expecting Kurusu to ask him something. That’s what Goro got from the expression that Kurusu didn’t seem aware that he was making. His suspicions are confirmed with Kurusu breaks the silence,

“I know you’re probably tired of answering this question, and I know what your response on tv is, but I want to know straight from you. What’s it like being a high school detective?”

_It involves a lot more murder than you’d expect_ , is Goro’s first thought, but he wasn’t going to admit that. In any case, he was prepared for that question, “It can be quite frustrating at times. Especially with the mental shutdown case. After all, it appears that the culprit behind all of these is capable of triggering a shutdown without even being at the scene of the crime when it happens, which means that my job becomes that much harder.”

_Well, it would be harder if you weren’t the one triggering those mental shutdowns_ , Goro thinks to himself.

Kurusu contemplates his response before speaking up again, as if he were trying to word his next question carefully, “are you saying the culprit has some supernatural powers?”

Goro chuckles, it’s fake of course since Kurusu was absolutely correct, but any normal person would dismiss his question as a ludicrous conspiracy, “I believe that they are definitely using unconventional methods to do as they please, but I’m not sure if I’d go to the extent of implying that they’re using supernatural means to achieve their goals.”

“You don’t believe in the supernatural?”

It takes a while for Goro to reply to the question, as it was a turn in the conversation that he didn’t expect. He decided that it would be best to be honest, if maybe omitting parts of the truth, “As a detective, I feel as though it’s my obligation to believe only in what I can see with my own eyes,” _like shadows, and the Metaverse, and my persona, and my own power to turn people psychotic_ , “Of course this does mean that if I see something which disproves my precious way of thinking, I believe I’m open minded enough to reconsider my stance on such matters,” at least that was the whole truth. Goro didn’t believe he’d ever have any luck in life until some merciful god decided to grant him with these abilities, “Your questions make me wonder whether you think any different.”

Kurusu tilts his head from side to side, “I understand why you think the way you do but I don’t think I could look at the world that way. I think there’s definitely things out there that we might be ignorant to. I wouldn’t say there’s anything concrete I believe in, but I’m not afraid to admit that there’s more to what our eyes let us see.”

It takes a while for Goro to realise that he was grinning at Kurusu’s response. That wasn’t normal. It wasn’t that he didn’t like when people disagreed with him, but rather he didn’t enjoy having someone who appeared to be on the same level as him intellectually questioning him on his views, because how could he then try to outsmart them and leave them baffled?

This was different, Goro concluded, Kurusu wasn’t questioning his beliefs and ideologies, he was challenging them. Goro of course could never back out of a challenge, especially not if it was against someone as well read as the curly haired boy next to him.

While what Goro said had been true, he understood why Kurusu would feel this way. Goro knew that people who hadn’t entered the Metaverse weren’t typically aware of the cognitive world, if Wakaba Isshiki’s research was anything to go by, but it did suggest that many people’s views on not seeing the world for what it truly was were in fact true.

Maybe Goro was being close minded.

“I suppose I think the way I do because I’ve trained myself to not make assumptions that have no tangible or even circumstantial evidence backing them up,” He admits, getting a chuckle out of Kurusu, “Did I say something amusing?”

Kurusu shakes his head, but the smile doesn’t leave his face, “It’s not that, just... the way you phrase things makes you sound like being a detective is your entire life.”

Goro wasn’t sure how to respond and finds himself flustered. He wasn’t wrong in thinking that there only was one thing driving his actions, although to any outsider it may have seemed like it was detective work, “I- I suppose there might be some truth to that.”

Kurusu is quick to catch on when he notices Goro blushing, “Oh, no, I didn’t mean it in a bad way.... I think it’s cute.”

“C-cute?!” Goro says before he thinks, getting more flustered but for slightly different reasons now. What was this boy doing to his already fragile mind?

“Yeah, it’s quirky. In a good way, don’t worry,” Kurusu replies calmly, but Goro is still anything but. At least in his mind. Goro was able to maintain some level of composure on the outside, his practicing on Shido and other adults clearly not going completely to waste.

“Hm, I don’t think anyone has ever accused me of being quirky,” Goro muses but regrets his choice of words. Accused? Kurusu was onto something, but Goro knew he couldn’t be second guessing himself now, least of all second guessing his choice of words.

“You haven’t visited your fan sites enough then.”

“Are you a regular on these fan sites?” Because that’s exactly what Kurusu needed, more fuel to the fire he had started.

“Absolutely. I like to think I’m an expert on all things Goro Akechi.”

_Hardly, unless one of those fans mentioned anything about Goro Akechi being an on-call assassin for his illegitimate father and his friends... associates, same difference really._

“Actually, I might be getting ahead of myself,” Kurusu says as if he’d been reading Goro’s mind. Kurusu stops walking as they’re crossing a bridge, prompting Goro to stop and turn around to face him, “I couldn’t find much about your past.”

And you won’t, “As I’ve mentioned before, I find it quite difficult speaking about my past but... perhaps I could confide in you,” _no. No, you can’t. Akira Kurusu does not need to be involved in the mess that is your life. If you do that, you might start getting attached and then what will you do_ , “However, it may take some time for me to truly become an open book, and I may not always be completely honest with you about it,” Goro looks down, not wanting to see whatever sorry expression Kurusu might’ve had for him.

“We don’t have to start today. Or tomorrow, or even this month,” Kurusu reassures him, “But by the sound of it, you might need someone you can just talk to.”

“I couldn’t-.“

“I want to,” Kurusu cuts him off, “People have been telling me that they’ve been finding it easy to confide in me, and it may sound selfish, but I like being the one that others feel they can trust so, please. Let me be that for you as well.”

Goro turns his head, looking out to the river instead of meeting Kurusu’s eyes. The first thing that comes to Goro’s mind is the nightmares he’d been having over the past two years. Waking up in the middle of the night, sweating and most likely screaming in his sleep judging by the soreness of his throat.

He’d never tell Kurusu the real reason behind his guilt, but maybe having someone to share his other experiences with would somehow help reduce the intensity of those horrible nights in his empty apartment.

“I would like that,” he finally meets Kurusu’s eyes.

“It’s a deal then. Starting now, I get to be Goro Akechi’s therapist,” Kurusu jokes, and Goro smiles, if only a little, but it is genuine.

“All joking aside,” Goro lifts a finger to Akira when he opens his mouth to most likely make another joke, “Would you mind if we went and got food somewhere? As I mentioned earlier I did not have time to stop over at my apartment to change my attire or to eat.”

Kurusu grins once more, sight that even now wasn’t getting old, “You’re taking me out to dinner, huh? Could this be a real date after all?”

Goro looks away from Kurusu and out towards the rest of the path. If questioned, he would simply say that it was to see whether following the current path or turning back would be the easiest way out of the park. He wasn’t about to say that Kurusu had made him blush twice in the space of ten minutes. He was supposed to be the Charismatic Detective, not the stuttering mess of emotions that Kurusu had created merely through insinuations.

After the few seconds of silence that Goro had let hang in the air which gave him time to collect himself, he is finally able to give him an answer that sounded more like the calm and collected person he’d been making himself out to be over the past two years,

“If that is what you truly want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm currently out of the country and the wifi where I'm at isn't great so I might have some delays with posting. I'm only here till Tuesday so it'll only affect a few chapters, but I want to stay on track so if the wifi's completely down I promise that by next week everything will be updated according to plan!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! I have something special planned for the release of the P5 animation so stay tuned! ;)


	6. 5/25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira gets a text from Akechi asking him to meet out of the blue. Was Akechi taking up Akira's offer for being his confidant?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today’s the persona 5 anime release (in my time zone anyway) and I’m so hyped for it!  
> Anyway, here’s the chapter I promised with a little extra something!

Akira glances down at his phone to read all the messages he’d gotten in the short time between the school bell signalling the end of their classes and him standing up while getting Morgana stealthily into his bag.

There was one from the newest member of their odd-ball group, Yusuke Kitagawa, asking whether today was a good day to continue infiltrating the Palace of their newest target, Ann saying that she had some free time and was hanging out in the underground mall, Ryuji saying that he was also free and waiting by the staircase for any instructions, and Mishima informing him that their most recent change of heart was a success.

He puts his phone in his pocket, deciding to first see Iwai and Takemi for the supplies they’d need for their next infiltration, and just as he’s leaving the classroom, his phone buzzes once again. He half expects in to be Ryuji on the group chat talking about the Phantom Thieves’ popularity, or lack thereof, but is pleasantly surprised to see that it’s a message from Akechi. Good timing too, given that it was his first free day since they met last.

“Who’s Akechi?” Morgana asks, peering out from Akira’s bag and glancing at his texts because he never had a sense of privacy, “And why’s he asking if you two can talk in private?”

“He’s a friend,” Akira replies simply because for the time being that wasn’t exactly a lie. Akira had no idea what they were, “Sounds like he needs me though. You don’t mind-“

“You want to talk to him alone, huh?” Morgana understands.

“He’s in Shibuya Station right now. I can leave you with Ann if you want?” Morganas strange behaviour around ‘Lady Ann’ hadn’t gone unnoticed by Akira.

Even if he was in his cat form, Akira could see the happiness Morgana exhibited with the offer.

* * *

‘I want to go to the exhibit before it closes!’

‘The Madarame exhibit? Oh yeah I heard it’s really good, worth the long wait.’

‘Have you heard about the rumours?’

‘Madarame’s being accused of plagiarism by some anon’s online!’

‘Oh, come on, you don’t really believe that do you? It’s probably some online trolls looking to get popular. Madarame’s just a really talented artist who has multiple styles.’

* * *

“What can I do for you today, detective Akechi?” Akira asks Akechi as soon as he finds him by the baked goods store in Shibuya Station.

“Oh, Kurusu-kun, I’m glad you came,” Akechi looks up from his phone, which he pockets as soon as he notices Akira, “I was hoping to speak to you today. In private.”

“You promised to pick the location the next time we meet, so I’m leaving that up to you. Though by the sound of it you already know where we’re going,” Akira points out and it’s immediately confirmed by the nod Akechi gives him.

“If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to talk to you at my apartment.”

“Oh, taking me back to your place huh?” Akira asks in the flirtatious tone he’d occasionally been using to irritate the detective prince, “I thought that was just a third date kind of deal.”

“Kurusu-.“

“You didn’t even give me the chance to put on my nice underwear today.”

“Akira- I... must your mind always be in the gutter?” Akechi asks, but Akira knows he’s won when Akechi clearly struggles to stop a grin from forming on his face.

_Wait. Did Akechi just call me by my given name?_

Akira had to admit that he quite liked that. He wasn’t going to risk calling him Goro just yet. He only just seemed ready to talk to him about more than just what was known to the general public, “Admit it, you like it when I tease you like this,” Akechi stays silent, refusing to admit defeat, “But seriously, I don’t mind. I’ve got the whole afternoon off anyway.”

* * *

Akira hadn’t travelled much in his youth. He once went on a trip with his parents to Busan, but South Korea was the farthest he’d ever been, not to mention the only place he’d ever been that wasn’t Japan. So, he didn’t have a lot of experience staying in hotels, but Akechi’s apartment reminded him of the few times that he stayed in one.

The bare walls. The cleanliness. The lack of any photos of family or even friends in his living room and kitchen. Everything placed at a specific angle as if each item had its own designated area drawn out on a map.

Another thought came to Akira’s mind, which was that he could only see the door to one bedroom and unless Akechi had actually broken into someone else’s home, it looked like he lived entirely on his own. Akira was finding that quite hard to believe. Normal detectives didn’t make a lot of money, and even if Akechi made a little extra with all the interviews he did but there was no way he could afford an apartment this nice in the middle of Tokyo without having some rich benefactor. There was no word of such a figure in Akechi’s life on the internet, family or otherwise.

“Stop me if I’m probing too much, but how much money do high school detectives/TV personalities make?”

It gets a chuckle out of Akechi, and Akira is only surprised by his own underestimation of Akechi. Of course, he’d know what Akira was getting at, “You’re wondering how I am able to afford such a place? You’re right, I don’t make enough in either job to afford such accommodation, but with my deductions I’ve been able to obtain benefactors who were willing to pay for my accommodation and living requirements in exchange for favours. Would you like some tea?” Akechi offers, already pulling out two white cups from his kitchen cupboard.

“What kind of favours?” Akechi may have not been working for the police directly, but Akira knew that even have someone versed in the ins and outs of policing is beneficial for any rich, and possibly corrupt, donor, “And yes please,” Akira adds quickly when he realises he hadn’t answered Akechi’s question.

Akechi quickly shakes his head and dismissed his worries, picking up his kettle and pouring some water into it from his tap, “It’s nothing like that. Some people just had some issues which I was quickly able to help them with. None of it was fraudulent, of course,” It was a vague answer, but Akira took it for now, understanding by now how guarded Akechi could be at times, especially regarding his past.

When he sets the kettle on to boil, Akechi finally turns to Akira, which makes him realise that it was the first time that the detective looked at him since coming into his apartment, “I’m sure you’re also wondering why I asked you here.”

“Doesn’t take a detective to figure out that that’s what’s been on my mind the entire trip here,” Akira admits, his usual nonchalant voice coming through. It was Ryujis, Anns, and Morganas fault. He felt so at ease with them that he forgot that not all people appreciated how laid back he could be. Although judging from the smirk Akechi makes, Akira realises that Akechi doesn’t mind it either, “What’s up?”

“It might be sound silly but... I’m not quite sure why I invited you here. I’ve been very busy recently, but when I finally had some free time I realised how much I was longing to converse with someone again,” Akechi informs him, but Akira doesn’t interrupt him. There was clearly more that he wanted to say, “No, that’s not it. I wanted to talk to you, specifically.”

“You were feeling lonely,” Akira ends up saying more than questioning, which Akechi shrugs off.

“Perhaps. Although I’ve not thought about that for quite some time.”

“What? The possibility that you might be lonely?” Akira asks, and the kettle switches off, “then again you are always busy, and sounds like loads of people love you.”

Akechi shakes his head again and opens his cupboard to take out two teabags which he puts into each mug, “The public only loves what they see on TV, or the stories they hear about me from their colleagues. You must have noticed by now that there isn’t a single picture in this room. Why do you think that is?”

Akira struggles to give an answer that wasn’t going to make him sound like an ass, which gives Akechi time to pour the boiling water into the two cups, “I realise that there’s no polite way to answer that. I apologise. Although if you’re going to pity me, I’d rather you didn’t. I’ve chosen this life of my own accord,” Akechi replies for him and passes Akira his cup.

“Then why have you been talking to me so much? If you don’t like hanging out with others, why invite me over? Why accept my offer to go Inokashira?”

“Because you’re one of the few people that I really do enjoy conversing with,” Akechi blows at his tea, leaning back against his counter, “I find that I don’t have to pretend to be interested in what you’re saying because I truly am interested in what you have to say. I don’t have to force a topic of conversation, it comes naturally.”

Akira laughs, throwing Akechi off balance. This reaction was completely unexpected, and less than favourable for Akechi, which his expression shows clearly, “Sorry, I guess I’m not used to having such an intense conversation with someone. I’m not laughing at you, just... I guess the situation if anything. I mean, you find that conversation is easiest when talking to a guy who bumped into you at a busy train station? How often do you talk to people you bump into anyway?”

Akechi’s expression softens, and he lets out a little chuckle too, “I suppose you could call it fate.”

Akira takes a sip of his own tea before responding, “I’ll have to thank whatever god’s in charge for throwing that little bit of luck my way then,” it’s quiet, but it’s loud enough for Akechi to hear.

Akechi doesn’t hide his mild surprise, setting his cup down on the counter next to him, “Are you happy to have met me?”

“Would I be here if I wasn’t?” neither try to look up in case their eyes were to meet by accident, “Look… I don’t pity you, and I was only partly joking when I said I’d be your therapist,” picking up the courage to do so, Akira finally looks up and puts his own cup down on the counter. He takes the couple of steps that separated him and Akechi, “I want to be the person you can confide in.”

“I hope you realise just how much that work entails,” Akechi points out with some snark, but instead of pushing Akira away from him like he intended to do with that comment, it only drew him closer. Akira places a hand under Akechi’s chin and moves his head to have him look directly in his eyes.

“Then it’s a good thing that I’ve got a lot of time and patience on my hands.”

Without hesitating, Akira pulls Goro closer to him, finally closing the distance between their lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw there’s like nothing really on Akira’s past so I’m kinda improvising with that.
> 
> I’ve hit the halfway point of the second part, and I’ll only say that things get real intense. But then when aren’t things intense between these two?
> 
> Thank you all for all the wonderful feedback, I look forward to seeing what you guys think about the next chapter!


	7. 5/30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goro could use a distrcation for the evening, and coincidentally, so could Akira

With what Goro could only describe as a confession, it didn’t take long for him and Akira to go from being close friends to... something more. Goro didn’t want to put a label on it just yet, although between the couple of dinners they had together over the past week to making out in his thankfully empty apartment, he discovered that the lines were becoming a lot more defined.

Would Akira want to be his boyfriend? Is he his boyfriend? Does Akira think he’s his boyfriend? Most importantly, does he want Akira to be his boyfriend?

 _Yes_ , he thinks, answering his last question immediately. Of course, the relationship would be complicated no matter what Akira had said from his point of view. After all, he’d been moonlighting an assassin for the past two years and his grand plan seemed to be reaching a conclusion within the next half a year.

Goro had never planned a life beyond that ultimate goal, but becoming a normal student in a happy, problem-free relationship wasn’t something he considered as an option until now.

His thoughts are all washed away when his phone begins to ring. Goro leaps forward, hoping that it's Akira who had another free evening, but his smile quickly falls when Shido’s name comes up.

“What’s their name?” Goro asks, getting straight to the point. He really wasn’t in the mood to be playing psychotic Akechi tonight and didn’t want to hear Shido’s voice for longer than he had to.

He underestimates just how much his father loved hearing the sound of his own voice, “You’re sounding particularly eager,” Goro wasn’t sure whether he was being sarcastic or not, “It’s not a name. One of our clients would like to get rid of another one of his competitors. He doesn’t particularly care how you go about it, as long as their stocks drop.”

“I presume then that you expect me to get the name of one of their employees by myself?” Goro asks, resisting to sigh. It wasn’t like he already didn’t have enough work on his hands but doing extra homework just to keep Kunikazu Okumura happy wasn’t something he found particularly rewarding. But he knew if he declined then chances were Shido would no longer find him useful and have the Yakuza take care of him. Goro had done his research on who Shido really surrounds himself with, “What’s the name of the company?”

“He wants you to target Wild Duck Burger. Oh, and there is one other thing. Madarame, that artist I had you look into once before, he has been getting quite full of himself recently, and I’d like you to make sure that he understands who he’s loyal to. Is that clear?”

“Of course, Shido-san. I’m sure you’ll know when the deeds been done without myself needing to contact you again,” he hangs up before Shido could complain about him calling him by his name once again, despite the fact that he was alone in his apartment and there was no chance anyone could’ve been listening in on the conversation.

He discards his phone on the coffee table in front of him, picking up some files in the meantime, but it didn’t take long for him to get a text which he presumed was from Shido, telling him that there was more he had to say.

He’s tempted to leave the phone be, but ultimately decides that it was best to deal with Shido while he was still in the right mindset rather than leaving it till the morning. Glancing at the name immediately changes Goro’s mood when he sees that it was Akira, who was asking him if he could call.

 _He must’ve been trying when I was talking to Shido_ , Goro thinks as he finds Akira’s number in his contacts and decides on calling him himself.

Akira answers on the first ring, “Am I contacting you at a bad time? Apparently, you were busy on the phone earlier.”

“Not at all,” Goro instinctively shakes his head and stops when he quickly realises that Akira couldn’t see him, “I was on the phone to someone else earlier, but it’s nothing I can’t move to tomorrow morning.”

“You sure? I don’t want to bother you if you’re busy.” Was Goro right in thinking that Akira sounded almost... nervous? That was new.

“I’m sure that even if you hadn’t called me then I would have procrastinated the night away on my own,” Goro admits, and luckily for him Akira never asked him what he was working on specifically, making Goro’s life that little bit easier.

“I didn’t know the great Ace Detective Prince procrastinates work just like the rest of us common folk,” Akira gasps, and Goro can’t help but smile. At least with Akira not being in the same room as him he wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

“I suppose I do occasionally feel as though I need to climb off my high horse and mingle amongst the rest of you peasants,” He decides to play along, a type of response that only Akira had managed to get out of him.

“Ouch,” Akira replies, but Goro could tell that it was with a smile.

“But if you’d like to come over you’re more than welcome to right now.”

“It’s getting kind of late.”

“Then stay over,” Goro quickly suggests before he can regret his decision.

The other side of the call grows silent, so much so that Goro’s tempted to ask if anything had happened to Akira.

“Alright. I’ll take you up on that offer,” Akira replies eventually, “I’ll see you in like... 20 minutes? Actually, make that 30, I should probably grab some extra stuff.”

**_You know what will happen if you let slip what you’ve been up to so far, don’t you?_ **

Goro grits his teeth out of habit when the familiar voice of Loki pops up in his head. Out of his two personas, Loki was by far the chattiest and certainly the least supportive of Goro talking to anyone who wasn’t going to benefit his ultimate goal.

 ** _Loki serves only to distract you,_** Robin Hood chimes in. Oh good now everyone’s here for the party going on in Goro’s head, **_however, informing Akira Kurusu of your side activities will only lead you to ruin. This we can agree on._**

He doesn't listen to either of them and goes back to mindlessly flicking through the files.

* * *

Exactly half an hour later, Goro's opening the door to his apartment, letting Akira in. He wasn’t stupid enough to leave incriminating evidence lying around in his apartment, but he still made sure to hide anything that could’ve connected him to Shido and the tasks that came with that connection, ”Welcome,” he says with a smile and moves away from the door to let Akira in, “You sounded troubled over the phone. Is everything alright?”

“Well... I think so?” Akira replies vaguely, taking off his shoes. He dumps his overnight bag on Goro’s couch and sits down before explaining, “Actually, there’s not exactly anything wrong with me just... I had the weirdest experience that I think I’ll ever have in my life, and I’m not sure how to deal with it.”

Goro closes the door and sits down next to Akira on the couch, “I may be a detective, but I’ll need some more details about the situation you’re in if you want me to help you.”

“I don’t need help... okay maybe psychological help if you’re at all experienced with dealing with trauma and unwanted memories,” trauma and unwanted memories? Goro couldn’t help but think how that would make an excellent title for his autobiography, “Though telling someone about it might make it feel less... crazy. Have I told you about Ryuji and Mishima?”

Goro shakes his head, “I remember Ryuji’s name, but I can’t place Mishima anywhere...”

“Oh, well he’s this guy in my class who’s a little awkward and too curious for his own good. Back to the story, during break yesterday, Ryuji pulled out this flyer for a maid service. He tried to convince me to check it out with him, Mishima overheard us and wanted to join in too under the pretence of investigation,” the entire time that he tells his story, Akira doesn’t look up at Goro once.

“You've only just began and already I’m not sure if I want to know where this is going...”

Akira’s eyes widen at the implication Goro was making, “No, nothing like that happened! And you thought my mind was in the gutter.”

Goro rolls his eyes, “Continue.”

“The two of them decide to call this service up the next day- today- and do it from the apartment bellow Ryuji’s since no one lived there, he knew where the key was, and his landlord was chill. I get roped into it because I had no input in the conversation at all but at the same time I kinda wanted to see it all blow up in their faces. The two of them get me to call up the maid which was a great idea at the time since Mishima struggles talking normally to anyone of the opposite sex and Ryuji struggles talking normally to, well, anyone, and so I’m the one who calls them up.”

“Wait,” Goro thinks aloud, “Aren’t all of you too young to be calling them up in the first place? And wouldn’t you get into the most trouble given-“ he’s cut off when Akira puts a finger to his mouth.

“Patience, Detective, I’m getting there,” he knows that Goro's annoyed with him for interrupting him like that, but Akira finds a lot of pleasure in shutting him up like that, “So the maid knocks on the door, and at the last second the two of them decide to bail. But it’s an apartment on the third floor, so they run onto the balcony and pull the blinds down, telling me to deal with her. I tell her the doors open and she comes in, we talk for a bit and I make the mistake of turning around... because the next thing I see is my homeroom teacher in a maid outfit staring right back at me and we’re both thinking ‘what the hell are you doing here?’”

It's clear that Goro wants to laugh at his misfortune, but Akira appreciates it that he was trying to stifle his laughter by biting down on his lip hard. Eventually, Goro broke the silence, “...when do you have class with her next?”

“At this point, never. I’ve decided that I’ll be living here from now on, on the run. In return, I will gladly become your housewife and cook you pancakes for breakfast every day,” Akira announces.

“Like a maid?”

Akira sighs, deciding that maybe he’d been spending too much time with Goro in too short a time for his personality to be rubbing off on him this much, “Okay I fell for that one.”

“Although you do realise that the fatal flaw in your plan is that I work closely with the police and it wouldn’t take them much to figure out your whereabouts,” Goro entertains his ridiculous idea, “But I think you could use this to your advantage.”

“Enlighten me.”

“A high school teacher working as a maid part time seems like quite the risk. It may be interesting to know why she is doing this in the first place. If it’s for the money, then if you request her enough she may feel indebted to you and show you some favour in class,” Goro thinks out loud.

“You mean.... getting on her good side by embarrassing the both of us? And you’re okay with me doing this?” Akira asks.

Goro shrugs, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

It takes a while for Akira to sputter out his question, but he eventually gets out, “Aren’t we sorta, kind of, uh... dating?”

Goro chuckles, genuinely. At least he managed to get an answer about his most recent worry from Akira without prompting him as much as he thought he’d need to, “You’re right. I’m terrified that you may reconsider our relationship in return for pursuing a relationship with your teacher/maid that I myself suggested you contact.”

“Maybe that’s just my kink.”

“Good to know,” Goro mutters jokingly, loud enough for Akira to hear.

“Now who’s being crude?” Akira asks and the two of them can’t help but chuckle at the more than odd circumstances they appeared to be in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little bit of a lighter chapter today!  
> I like to think that persona users can hear their persona's talk from time to time in their own heads since they definitely hear them when they first awaken to their persona, although in this fic it mostly applies to Goro since I also feel like Akira and Arsene would get along very well.  
> Thank you all once again for the wonderful feedback, as always it's heavily appreciated!


	8. 6/9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira never liked definitions, but maybe it was time to reconsider that.

“I’m so pissed off!” Akira could hear Ryuji snap as the two walked down a corridor of the TV station. So far, the social studies trip had been boring to say the least, but it wasn’t like the two of them had somewhere else to be.

Tuning Ryuji’s rantings out, Akira had started to think back to what Madarame’s shadow had said. Up until now everyone was certain that they were the only ones who knew about the Metaverse, but now there was someone else? Not just that, but he didn’t seem to be using it for the same noble reasons that they were, at least that’s what Akira thought. Otherwise he’d have shown himself, or at the very least, Madarame’s shadow wouldn’t have feared him.

_There’s something else I’m forgetting..._

In the meantime, Ann had joined them which meant that Akira no longer had to worry about pretending that he’d been listening to the conversation.

Ryuji didn’t bore him, but the leader of the of the Phantom Thieves always had way too much on his mind for a high school student.

“You know, we get to go straight home from here, but we don’t really get the chance to be in this area that much. Why don’t we go somewhere?” Ann suggests, and Akira opens his mouth of suggest somewhere but is promptly cut off by Morgana who climbs out of his bag and onto his shoulders.

“Oh, I know a place! I wanna go to that huge pancake looking place we passed on the way here!” He exclaims, and instead of being annoyed at Morgana, Akira smiles. He was about to suggest the theme park himself.

“Huh? What are you talking about?” Ryuji asks but quickly makes the connection, “Oh you mean Dome Town? Oh yeah, they’ve got all kinds of crazy rides there.”

“Then let’s go!” Morgana replies enthusiastically, “I’ll show you just how courageous I can be!”

 _You mean, show Ann how courageous you are_ , “Sorry Mona, but I doubt they’d let cats onto any of the rides.”

Ryuji smirks, “Unless you stay in Akira’s bag. But then you’d probably end up puking.”

“Besides, going on a rollercoaster doesn’t exactly prove any kind of courage,” Ann adds, “But I’m still totally up for going if all of you wanna go?”

“Hell yeah! Let’s go to Dome Town!” Ryuji announces, loud as always.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass on the puke rides,” Morgana says dejectedly, and upon hearing footsteps approaching them, jumps right back into Akira’s bag.

“Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice-.“ Goro begins as he walks into the hallway, but cuts himself off when he sees his boyfriend not three feet away, “Akira?”

“Akira?!” Both Ann and Ryuji say, looking between the two boys, clearly surprised.

“Oh, Goro, I didn’t expect you to show up here,” Akira replies honestly. Although now that he thought about it, he did remember hearing Goro mentioning his interview tomorrow with some students the day before. That must’ve been what Akira had forgotten earlier.

“Goro?!” The two both exclaim again, still confused.

“Akira, you know this guy?!” Ryuji asks first.

“And you’re already on a first name basis?” Ann asks second.

Akira smiles awkwardly, and nervously rubs the back of his neck, “Heh, uh, yeah actually. This is-.“

“Goro Akechi,” Goro interrupts, preferring to introduce himself, “I met Kurusu-kun a couple of months ago when he accidentally bumped into me at Shibuya Station.”

“Akechi...?” Ann mutters to herself.

“You say that like it was only my fault,” Akira mumbles, but everyone around hears him, and Goro chuckles.

“True, I was distracted myself. Nonetheless, I only really came here because I heard you all talking and thought it would be polite to introduce myself. We’ll be filming together, after all,” Goro smiles, but by now Akira could distinguish between Goro’s fake TV smile and his real one, and this was definitely the former. He didn’t blame him though, he knew that Goro preferred to be surrounded by limited company, but it was nice to know he was trying.

“Filming together? What, are you some kind of celebrity?” Ryuji asks rudely, but if Goro’s offended, he doesn’t show it.

“Only to the extent of appearing on TV a couple of times,” Goro replies vaguely, most likely expecting Akira to fill them in on the details later.

“Oh....” Ann says out loud which catches Akira’s attention. She locks eyes with him, and Akira could tell she was trying to ask him non-verbally if that was the Goro Akechi she was thinking about. Akira gives her a curt nod as a reply, while Goro pulls out his phone.

“I have a meeting, so I should be going now,” he quickly types something into his phone while speaking, “I couldn’t help but overhear that you’re all going to have cake now,” he puts the phone away after clicking send and Akira feels his phone buzz. He decided to check it later to not make it too obvious that Goro has been texting him right in front of everyone

After all, neither of them knew how public the other person wanted to make their relationship. Communication was key to any relationship, but due to both of their demanding jobs, whenever they saw each other they had better things to do than discuss the mechanics of their relationship.

“Cake? What’re you talking about?” Ryuji asks.

“Oh, am I mistaken?” Goro asks, genuine surprise coming across his face, “I thought I heard something about delicious pancakes...”

 _Of course, that’s the part of the conversation you’d hear_ , Akira thinks, smirking briefly as he knew quite a lot already about his boyfriend’s obsession with the breakfast/dessert food. His smirk however quickly turns to a frown at a different realisation, _although I could swear that only Morgana mentioned pancakes... weird._

“Hm, I must have misheard then. No matter, I suppose I’ll see you all tomorrow,” Goro replies to himself when the silence begins to linger for a bit too long and walks away.

“Is he some kinda start up entertainer or somethin’?” Ryuji asks Akira when he knows Goro is out of earshot, “Though you gotta admit, he’s never gonna get popular with that kind of hair.”

 _What do you have against his hair. I think it suits him perfectly_ , Akira thinks defensively, but Ann’s first to respond, shaking her head.

“You... don’t get it.”

“So, who is he?” Ryuji asks Akira again.

“He’s a friend,” Akira replies vaguely.

“He called you Akira.”

“You call me Akira.”

“I’m your best friend,” Ryuji points out, and Akira knows he’s not going to get away with the answer.

“He’s… another close friend.”

Ryuji sighs, “I guess we’ll see him tomorrow, I’ll find out more then. Right now, I wanna go to Dome Town!”

“Can’t we just have cake? I don’t wanna go on the puke rides!” Morgana begs as they all make their way to the exit. In the meantime, Akira pulls out his phone to check the message on it.

> Goro: **Im free 2nite, could u come over?**

Goro never texted like this. Was he really that worried about his friends finding out he was texting Akira? He frowns, and quickly types out his own text while Morgana was too busy arguing with Ryuji to notice.

> Akira: **Sure, I’ll see you at 7?**
> 
> **...**
> 
> Goro: **That should work for me.**

* * *

Akira knocks on Goro’s door after having left Morgana with Ann under the excuse of having urgent business to attend to and he couldn’t bring his bag. It was a terrible excuse and Ann clearly didn’t believe him for a second, but for some unexplained reason she hadn’t questioned him about it and let him go about his business. As expected, Morgana didn’t complain once.

Akira starts talking as soon as the door opens, not giving Goro the opportunity to greet him, “You know, I’m starting to run out of viable excuses for disappearing every other night.”

“That’s part of the reason for why I asked you to come over,” Goro replies moving aside to let Akira in. Akira notices that he couldn’t get even a fake smile out of Goro, and when he turns around to face him, he also notices the dark circles under his eyes. They weren’t there at the TV station earlier, right? Was Goro covering them up?

“Is everything alright?” Goro gives him a confused look, as if he didn’t know why something would be wrong. Akira walks up closer to Goro and delicately puts his hand on his cheek, rubbing his thumb just below his eyes, “You look exhausted. Have you been sleeping fine?”

Goro lifts up his gloved hand to Akira’s and slowly removes it from his face, “Just a few sleepless nights due to work, that’s all,” he tries to reassure him, but Akira isn’t convinced.

Still holding onto his hand, Goro leads him over to his couch where the two sit down, “With both of our schedules seemingly busy, I understand that we don’t get many chances to talk about us, and while making out and falling asleep next to each other after a long day is wonderful- better than wonderful even- I feel like we should finally discuss what we’ve been avoiding.”

Goro was right, of course he was, but Akira liked living in the moment, not particularly set on any labels and frankly not giving a damn about what others thought of him (at least that was the case outside of his escapades as Joker). However, Akira also acknowledged that someone like Goro, a detective set on having straight answers, a celebrity who was loved by the public, needed to have something between them defined, and most likely wasn’t in favour of having to lie about his whereabouts to his superiors every so often for Akira’s benefit.

“I agree, but... at the same time, I’ve never really cared much for labels or public opinion,” Akira admits first and continues quickly when Goro opens his mouth in an attempt to argue that, “But, if you need that for your own comfort, I’ll gladly comply. If it makes you happy, I’ll do anything for you, Goro.”

Goro exhales a breath he’d clearly been holding in since Akira said ‘but’ before trying to speak again, “I... Yes, it’s true that I feel a lot more comfortable knowing what we are and what we can do about it, and in a way, it brings some much needed stability into my own life.”

“I would’ve thought that your squeaky-clean apartment would be some kind of representation of just how balanced out your life is. I mean, if you’re an honour student who solves crimes in his free time while also giving out interviews and still finds the time to bike every morning and write up a food blog then you’ve gotta be doing something right,” Akira says, flnally getting a real smile out of Goro.

Although Akira expected as much, since he’d come to learn just how desperate for praise his boyfriend could be at times.

“I suppose you’re right. Nevertheless, I’d like to establish certain... things with you.”

“Like?”

At first, Goro struggles to decide on where to begin, “for example... ah, I noticed that you had not only not told your friends that you know me, but you don’t appear to have told them that you’re in a relationship. Is there any reason for that?”

Akira shakes his head, “Not really, I mean, I guess I didn’t want them asking me loads of questions and getting nosy, but I also didn’t know whether you’d be okay with us going public? _Are_ you okay with that?”

Goro slowly nods, “Yes... however, given the circumstances, I think you should wait until after the interview tomorrow.”

Akira wasn’t entirely sure what Goro might’ve been implying there, although even if it was something bad, Akira probably agreed. He loved his friends but more often than not they spoke without thinking and having them possibly do that on national TV may prove to be a disaster for everyone involved, “I’ll have to agree with you on that. What else has been on your pretty mind?”

“Oh, well, uh,” Goro was starting to get a little flustered, especially with Akira edging closer to him, “Oh, well, I suppose we should also talk about just how exclusive this relationship should be.”

“Hmm, I’m not sure I want to share you with anyone,” Akira leans in. Goro didn’t realise just how red his cheeks could get and just how flustered he could be around someone like Akira.

“R-right, I... I feel the same way too, of course.”

“Anything else you’d like to talk about, my charming detective prince?” Akira asks in a husky tone, his running up and down Goro’s thigh, his face inches away from his boyfriends’ own.

“I-I-I… suppose there’s the matter of me, ah-,” he gasps when Akira leans down and starts to nip at his neck, but proceeds to finish his thought, “-actually going over to your place instead of asking you to come over to mine.”

Akira gently sucks down on his partners neck, eliciting a soft moan from him, before replying, still using the husky tone, “I don’t mind. I live in a small attic, my beds quite small too,” he goes back to Goro’s neck, still slowly rubbing his hand down his thigh.

Goro was clearly losing control over the entire situation, something he’d normally hate. However, he found that with Akira, succumbing to the pleasures and losing control was something he found quite easy to do, welcoming even to a certain degree, “And what exactly do you think we’d be doing here that we can’t do in your small attic room?”

Akira pulls away from Goro’s neck, wraps his free hand around the back of it, “Let me show you,” he replies, and pulls his boyfriend into a deep kiss.

He’d have to contact Sojiro and let him know he had stayed over at someone else’s for the night, but for tonight, he preferred to otherwise occupy his mind with the detective in front of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had no idea how difficult writing kissing scenes without getting flustered was till I started writing this... I hope I did these two justice and will continue to do so :D
> 
> Once again, thank you everyone for all of the feedback, as always it’s appreciated and if you have any questions then I’ll answer them to the best of my ability without spoiling what I have planned for this!


	9. 6/10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goro seems to know far more than he's letting on, or is Akira just being paranoid?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your wonderful comments! I’ve been getting so excited about them that I’ve been reading them all to everyone around me :D  
> A little heads up for this chapter, it does contain parts of the dialogue from the game but only for a little while.

Goro stirs awake and his first instinct as with every morning that he doesn’t wake up to an alarm is to check the time. It was nearing 8. Luckily, he and Akira didn’t need to be at the station for another two hours, and it was only a 5-minute walk and 10-minute train ride from his apartment.

_Akira._

Goro thought the right-hand side of his bed felt emptier than it had when he finally fell asleep. So why wasn’t there anybody next to him now?

Putting on the clothes he found in his immediate vicinity, he leaves the bedroom without even making the bed as he usually did. His fears are quelled when he finds Akira at his stove, wearing his apron and cooking breakfast for them. It was pancakes of course.

“Morning!” Akira calls out cheerfully, flipping over the pancake he was making. Goro was surprised that he didn’t try to flip it in mid-air in a poor attempt to impress him.

“Good morning,” he walks over to the table where he finds the morning newspaper already on it, “I didn’t know I had the ingredients to make pancakes.”

Akira picks up the plate which already had a stack of pancakes on it and places it on the table. Goro walks over to his cupboards to get out some more plates and cutlery for himself and Akira, “You didn’t. I borrowed your keys and went down to the grocery store since you had nothing to eat in your entire kitchen. I hope you don’t mind.”

So not only had Akira taken Goro’s keys without permission, he’d clearly raided his cupboards enough to find everything he needed and know that he had little food stored in his kitchen, on top of which he assumed that Goro would let him use his kitchenware as he pleased? _How rude_ , was Goro’s first thought, though even in his mind it sounded flat. How was it possible for him not to be infuriated with Akira for such an invasion of privacy?

_Maybe that's his own power, which... is actually possible in this world... that’s a conversation for another day. Although... the Phantom Thieves are gaining notoriety amongst the public, so it won’t seem so strange if I bring up that topic._

“Something wrong?” Goro snaps out from his train of thought and looks to the person who posed the question.

“I was wondering why you hadn’t woken me up when you woke up,” Goro lies.

“You looked cute while you were sleeping,” Akira says and moves the last pancake he made onto the top of the stack. Once everything was set, the two of them sit down and start on their meal.

“I swear, you are a walking cliché,” Goro states bluntly but it gets a chuckle out of Akira.

“Hey, there’s a reason why they’re clichés,” Akira reaches for a pancake, “Although the other reason was that you seemed pretty restless during the night, so I wanted to make sure you got some good rest.”

Goro pauses. He must’ve had another nightmare, but he couldn’t remember it once he woke up. Still, it clearly worried Akira. At least he hadn’t spoken in his sleep and revealed something problematic, “Hm, it’s true that I do occasionally suffer from insomnia, and even when I do get to sleep it’s usually not for this long. I may have been restless because everything that’s been happening recently is just so new to me...” which wasn’t entirely untrue. He goes back to what he was doing earlier, reaching for the syrup to pour on his pancakes, “You needn’t worry. I would prefer it if you woke me up when you do. I... apologise if I kept you awake during the night.”

“You know, I wouldn’t mind if you kept me up all night long,” Akira winks at him, and Goro sighs but he’s also grateful for Akira’s attempt to relieve the tension, “But seriously, you don’t have to worry about waking me up. I fall asleep easily and I’m usually a pretty heavy sleeper.”

“Of course,” Goro replies and the two finish their breakfast in silence, Goro reading the paper and Akira texting back all the people he ignored the night before. At a certain point, Goro looks up and chuckles, realising just how domestic the two had become over such a short period of time, seeing that not only had Akira borrowed his clothes, but the shirt he happened to grab was Akira’s own. Maybe it was Goro’s repressed need to be acknowledged and loved by others or Akira’s special ability which allowed him to get even the most introverted people to confide in him as if he’d known them for years. Even Goro couldn’t deduce which was the right one.

* * *

It doesn’t take long for Akira to find his favourite loud-mouthed blonde boy once he reaches the studio. Ryuji had saved him a seat at the end of the row, and as soon as he sat down and placed his bag under his chair, he felt something rub against his leg. Morgana, he thought, that or he was getting some very confusing signals from his best friend.

“So, where’d you rush off to yesterday? Ann said that you were meeting up with someone, but you never said who,” Ryuji asks him without even saying hello. Akira would’ve considered it rude had he not been spending a large portion of his free time over the past two months with the guy.

“Uh, it’s complicated. I’ll explain after the show,” he replies quickly.

“Hm...” Ryuji hums, clearly not completely satisfied with the answer, “Alright, but you know I’m gonna hold you to that,” even Ryuji is sure to lower his voice when he sees the two show hosts walk on stage. One of the cameramen announces that Goro was about to walk on stage and a large portion of the girls in the audience gasps and mumble between themselves, especially when the detective walks onto the stage, “Wait, ain’t that the guy from yesterday?” Ryuji asks.

The interview goes smoothly at first, and unsurprisingly, the topic of the Phantom Thieves comes up. Akira had expected Goro to throw around some jokes concerning them, but even he’s surprised to hear what his boyfriend truly thought of them.

“-but if these Phantom Thieves truly exist, I believe they should be tried in a court of law.”

_Well this makes things more complicated._

The interview continues in this manner, with Goro completely denouncing the Phantom Thieves and Akira stops himself from sinking in his chair, trying his best to hide how he really felt. Not that Goro was paying him any attention at the moment, but for all he knew the detective may turn in his direction at any given moment. Which of course he does.

“-I’d love to hear some more detailed opinions on the Phantom Thieves’ actions.”

The female reporter stands up and Akira could swear that she was making a bee like for him, and Akira wondered whether that was his boyfriends doing. When all of his peers and cameras turn to him, he quickly glances back to Goro, who winks at him. _Involving others in our mind games now, and after I made you your favourite food for breakfast._

“Alright, let’s try asking this student here. Hypothetically speaking, what are your thoughts on these Phantom Thieves’, if they were real,” the reporter asks and moves the microphone in her hand closer to Akira’s face.

 _This is how you want to play this? Well then_ , “They do more than the cops,” which as he had expected, gets a chuckle out of Goro. The reporters however are clearly confused by his positive reaction.

“This completely goes against the opinion you had about them being tried by law, Akechi-kun,” the male reporter points out.

This was never intended to throw Goro completely off. Akira knew he’d have to work harder for that, “Indeed,” Goro confirms, “it’s rather intriguing to hear such a strong acknowledgement. In that case, there’s one more question I’d like to ask...” He trails off, but Akira knows this wasn’t a sign of defeat, “If someone close to you, for example your friend next to you... if his heart suddenly changed, wouldn’t you think it was the work of the Phantom Thieves?”

Akira didn't expect that. He assumes that it wasn’t strictly about Ryuji since Goro knew that the Phantom Thieves only targeted criminals, unless he held some personal grudge against his best friend. Could he have been talking about himself? No. Goro was a detective, he was an honour student and always respectful towards his elders. Unless this was just his way to completely mess with Akira, asking a question that seemed to be heavy with implications when in reality there weren’t any there.

Akira couldn’t see a witty way out of this without revealing himself to be the leader of the group, but everyone was waiting on his answer and he didn’t need his boyfriend becoming suspicious of him now that things were going so well, “What do you think?”

“Ah, throwing the question back at me?” Goro asks rhetorically, “Well, this is my opinion on the topic; whether the Thieves’ actions are good or not, I feel there is a more important issue at hand,” _there is?_

“Hm?” The male reporter voices Akira’s is thoughts while the female reporter had finally moved back to her seat, “What do you mean?”

“The matter of how they change people’s hearts,” Akira found it difficult, but he couldn’t help but agreeing with Goro on that point. He knew he was doing the right thing exposing these criminals, but of course he always wondered whether the methods of forcing someone to gain a conscience was worth it. At the end of the day, he knew the means justified the end and that’s what was important for him to remember.

“If they honestly possess that ability... it could be used for more than extracting confessions.”

The Phantom Thieves knew what they were doing... more or less. Akira’s thoughts once again went to the man in the black mask that Madarame mentioned. If he was a persona user, and more importantly, if he could use the Metaverse as the Phantom Thieves to commit crimes, then it was no surprise that Goro would be concerned. After all, how would he know the difference between the Phantom Thieves and the man in the black mask, how could anyone who hadn’t experienced the Metaverse.

His over-thinking the latter results in him zoning out for the remainder of the interview, enough to not even hear about how his boyfriend was actually working with the police to catch him.

He comes to when he feels Ryuji standing up, and picks up the now heavier bag, standing up himself. The two of them and Ann walk to the side of the set to speak in quiet.

“Wait for me, I just gotta take a leak,” Ryuji says quickly before running off.

“So then, was he telling the truth?” Ann asks once Ryuji’s out of earshot. Morgana perks up and rests his front paws on the back of Akira’s shoulder.

“How would Akira know?”

Ann smirks, “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice him and Akechi-san yesterday? Or how both seemed to appear at the station at the exact same time,” she’s got a sly smile on her face, and Akira knows she’s figured it out. Not like he wanted to deny it any longer anyway. This was technically post-interview, “there’s a reason you’re dating the Phantom Thieves’ second biggest problem, right?”

“...subterfuge?” Akira attempts as a joke, but clearly neither Ann nor Morgana are impressed, “Alright, I lied about you having never heard of him that one time, but I honestly like him. This was the first time either of us even mentioned the Thieves so there was no way I knew he’d be coming after us. All I knew was that he was working on the mental shutdown cases back in April.”

It takes a couple of seconds for Ann’s sly smile to turn into a happy one, “Aw, well I guess I’m happy for you... sorta. I mean, you know that this can’t last now, right? Either we get caught and he’ll never forgive you, or he’ll be out of a job and you’ll never forgive yourself.”

Akira sighs, Ann having echoed his own worries from ten minutes ago, “Look, I know, I’ll make... something work. I just need time to figure out exactly what that ‘something’ is.”

Why was he leader again? It couldn’t have been for his brilliant decision making. Even his adaptability was failing him at that moment. Wasn’t there supposed to be some sort of ruin coming if he screwed up? Akira wouldn’t have minded if that apocalyptic prophecy arrived sooner than expected. _Now would be a great time, really_.

“I do hope this works out for you, for all of us if I’m honest,” Ann snaps him out of his thoughts. Self-preservation was not something Akira could blame her for, “Just, be careful, okay?”

“Don’t worry, we use protection,” Akira couldn’t help but slip in the innuendo to relieve some of the tension that had built up since the start of Goro’s interview. Morgana groans and Ann gives him a small shove.

“Not even remotely what I meant!”

Akira knew someone was approaching them the moment he felt Morgana jump right back into his bag, “What has Kurusu-kun said or done this time?” Goro asks.

 _Oh no, Ann’s a terrible actress, she can’t talk to Goro or we’ll be trying to communicate via Morse code by tapping on our jail cell doors before the sun even starts to set_ , “I haven’t done anything!” Akira objects.

“Apart from being gross,” he hears Morgana comment and nudges his bag, “Ow!”

“Uh, Kurusu-kun? Is there something in your bag?” Goro asks, looking towards the mentioned item. Akira had forgotten that even though only they could understand Morgana, everyone else could still hear something coming out of his mouth.

Akira gives him a questionable look, “Why would you say that?”

“I-... it doesn’t matter,” Goro drops it and Akira thanks whatever god was out there that he doesn’t pursue that line of thought any further, “So then... have you-?”

“Ann knows, you can drop the ‘Kurusu’ around her,” he replies, interrupting him, “Ryuji’s gone to the bathroom, so I guess I’ll let him know whenever I get the opportunity.”

Goro nods and pulls out his ringing phone, frowning when he recognises the caller ID.

“Something wrong?” Akira asks.

Goro doesn’t look up but shakes his head, “No, it’s just work. Although recently receiving a call from them rarely brings good news. I apologise for the interruption, but I must answer this,” with a nod of understanding from Akira and Ann, Goro answers his phone and starts walking away from the two, “Niijima-san? I don’t suppose you’re calling with any developments on the case?”

 _Niijima_? Akira could’ve sworn that he’d heard that name before, but he was coming up dry when he tried putting a face to the name.

Just as Goro seemed to be moving further and further away from the group, Ryuji had made it back, “I was thinkin’, it’s not that big of a deal if this guy hates us, or thinks we’re the bad guys, right? I mean we’ll just prove him wrong with our next big gig.”

Morgana climbs out of Akira’s bag again, positioning himself in the same way that he had before, “It’s not that simple, Ryuji. First of all, we don’t even have any idea about the kind of person we’ll target next, let alone a name.”

Ann nods, “Morganas right. On top of that, he said that he’s already working with the police to determine if we’re even real,” she turns to Akira, “What do you think?”

Akira puts a finger to his chin in thought, something he must’ve picked up from Goro along the way, “If it’s not a problem now, it’ll be a problem later. Not only is he a detective, but he’s pretty popular at that. It wouldn’t be difficult for him to sway public opinion against us, if he hadn’t done it already. We can’t ignore him.”

“So, what? He’s an enemy? Do we change his heart?” Ryuji raises an eyebrow.

Akira quickly shakes his head, “No, he’s not a criminal and he doesn’t appear to have any distorted desires. He probably wouldn’t even appear in Mementos.”

“Not to mention he could be a useful source of information,” Morgana adds, “If Akechi’s working with the police then maybe we could use that. Finding out how much they know about us would be difficult without having someone on the inside after all.”

Ryuji shakes his head, “Nope. No way. We are not letting him in on this. Besides, shouldn’t we ask Yusuke about this too?”

“That’s... not exactly what I had in mind...” Morgana trails off as his gaze shifts from Ryuji to Akira, as does Ann’s.

Ryuji’s expression changes as something clicks in his mind, “Oh, you think he might be able to befriend him or something, right?”

“Uh...” Akira nervously rubs the back of his neck, “Yeah I kind of already went with ‘or something’ about a month ago.”

Silence falls in the group as Akira, Morgana and Ann all wait for Ryuji to inevitably understand what he was talking about. It doesn’t take him very long, “Dude... are you literally sleeping with the enemy?! And you didn’t think to tell me?!”

“I... at the time it didn’t seem relevant. I never expected this to happen! But, uh, yeah, I guess I kinda am,” Akira admits awkwardly, and Ann butts in,

“Even by your standards this feels like an overreaction.”

Ryuji crosses his arms, “I’m just annoyed that Akira didn’t tell me, his best friend, of all people. I mean I get why Morgana would know but c’mon, you told her before you tell me?” He asks, pointing at Ann, “At least tell me that Yusuke doesn’t know.”

“I only didn’t tell anyone till today because I wasn’t sure whether Akechi wanted us to be public,” Akira explains himself.

Ryuji keeps on glaring at him while he contemplates what he had said, still a little annoyed, but he quickly resigns, his stare softening, “I mean, I guess I can’t blame ya. So long as you’re happy then I’m not gonna judge you for making that call. Although, if Ann’s right then how the hell are you gonna explain yourself if he catches you?”

Akira shrugs, “I’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But about getting info from him...” he trails off, frowning.

Ann puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder, “We’ll totally understand if you’re uncomfortable with that and don’t want to do it. As helpful as it would be, we don’t want you to be miserable just for the sake of the mission.”

Akira smiles warmly, “Thanks, Ann, I appreciate the sentiment, but that’s not what I was gonna say. Getting anything out of him is difficult enough, I doubt he’d just spill any of the police’s secrets to me in a normal conversation. On top of that he’s pretty perceptive, I don’t think I’d be able to drop too many hints without raising suspicion.”

“So, talking to Akechi might be a bust,” Ryuji concludes.

“Right now, yeah. Getting anything out of him wouldn’t be worth it for the risk that it involves.”


	10. 7/9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Phantom Thieves take down Kaneshiro and Goro's popularity begins to drop. With everything slowly falling apart, he decides to call the one person he believes will always be on his side.

* * *

‘Is it true?! Did the Phantom Thieves take down that mobster guy?’

‘There’s no way, they don’t exist.’

‘You have to believe now though, I mean they’re everywhere! Even Akechi didn’t deny their existence.’

‘Have you seen that Phan-site? Word is that if you post a name on there the Phantom Thieves will change their heart.’

‘Huh, I mean I’m still not convinced but I guess that if they do exist, they’re true heroes of justice.’

‘The Phantom Thieves… Damn it!’

* * *

Goro reaches his apartment door, sighing in front of it before he reaches for the keys in his pocket. Unfortunately using the Shadows in Shido’s palace as target practice hadn’t proved to be as fulfilling as he wanted it to be. He secretly hoped that the earful he got just prior to his visit to the Metaverse from the aforementioned man would’ve somehow made it all better. He even considered actually finding his father’s Shadow and beating it to a pulp for the sheer joy he may have felt from it. He thought better of it, since he didn’t want to know how Shido would react in the real world, or what his cognition would’ve used to stop him.

 _It'll all be ovver soon, I must be patient_ , he thinks as he opens the door to his cold, empty, dark apartment. He switches on the lights, walks in still in his shoes because it’s not like he had much respect left for the apartment his father had provided him with or himself, loosens his tie and sits down on his couch, sighing again. He hated how much a simple trip to the Metaverse drained him, though he had no regrets for what he’d done. Shadows were closer to anti-bodies of the mind than actual people.

 ** _Then again, when did finding actual people in the cognitive world ever stop you from pulling the trigger?_** Loki smirks and Goro ignores him completely, too tired to with him for the night.

He considers asking Akira over to take his mind off the Phantom Thieves however that may prove problematic. For one, he was beginning to suspect that his boyfriend hadn’t been entirely truthful with him. He was friends with Ryuji Sakamoto and Ann Takamaki, two people who were previously involved in some way of another with the first victim, Kamoshida. He became friends with Yusuke Kitagawa around the time that Kitagawa’s sensei, Madarame, became the Thieves’ next victim. Then there was Makoto Niijima, Sae Niijima’s sister who was working with him on the mental shutdown case.

He could even consider himself as some form of connection to the case, Goro supposed, but that would suggest that Akira knew about his persona’s. Was Akira using him for information?

 _No, that was impossible. Akira met me before any of the change of hearts began. There’s no way he’s using me. Besides, I’ve never mentioned anything to him about the cases beyond what the public knows. I’d be a useless source of intel for him,_  Goro thought. _Of course I would assume that the one person who cares for me is only using me for his own selfish gains._

In the midst of his thoughts, he ends up pressing down on the dial button and soon hears Akira’s sleepy voice over the phone,

“Hey, any reason you’re calling me this late?”

 _Late?_ Goro looks down at the phone in front of him to check the time. It was almost 1 in the morning. Well, there was no going back now.

Goro puts his phone to his ear, “I apologise for waking you up. I lost track of the time but... I suppose I wanted to hear your voice.”

“You missed me that much huh?”

Goro rolls his eyes, “Don’t flatter yourself. I saw you yesterday, I’m not that co-dependant.”

“Uh-huh, whatever you say, honey,” it was an endearment that Akira started growing fond of especially since Goro had found it embarrassing when he used it in public, “If you don’t miss me, then what’s got you calling me right now?”

“I... I’ve had quite a stressful day. If you hadn’t heard, a gang boss had confessed to his crimes most likely due to the Phantom Thieves actions. So not only have I had to deal with that as part of my ongoing investigation, there’s plenty of people criticising me online because of that interview I did a month ago,” Goro explains. Although if his deductions were somehow correct, then Akira would’ve definitely known this already.

“Yeah, I saw that this morning. Not to mention the Phantom Thieves’ are all that everyone’s talking about at school. The picture of you in my classroom was replaced with their logo today,” Goro wasn’t sure, but was there a hint of guilt in Akira’s voice? He shakes his head, deciding that it was only his mind trying to connect things that weren’t there.

“There was a picture of me in your classroom?” His own pride forces him to grin at that.

“Wait I didn’t tell you? Well, it was a drawing on the blackboard, hearts around it and everything. No idea who drew it, but it’s pretty accurate, I’ll send it to you.”

Goro’s phone buzzes a second later. He leaves his phone app to look at his chat log, finding the image that Akira had sent him. He brings his phone back to his ear, “The resemblance is uncanny. Although are you certain that you don’t know who drew it? Only someone who’s seen me at close proximity would know these specific details of my face, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Or it’s one of your stalker fan-girls who have like 100 pictures of your face saved on their phones and have all of your features memorised anyway.”

“Do I detect a hint of jealousy?” Goro grins, “However, I do often find that you have chalk in your hair. Are you sure that you haven’t been drawing anything on the blackboards at your school?”

“I’ve only got chalk in my hair because Ryuji keeps messaging me during class and my teacher keeps thinking I’m not paying attention, so he throws chalk at me.”

“But you’re not paying attention,” Goro can’t help but point out.

“I’ve still got good grades. Besides, I’ve been getting better at dodging it. But..." Akira lowers his tone of voice, "I wouldn’t mind if it was you who was distracting me from time to time.”

Goro shakes his head, however he can’t stop himself from smiling at his insinuation, “Whenever you’re in class I’m either working on a case, being interviewed or in class myself. Even if I wanted to distract you, I hardly have the time for it.”

“Huh, maybe I should try distracting you then?” Goro can’t see it, but he knows that Akira winked at him just there.

“Please don’t. Explaining myself to my teachers is one thing, explaining myself to the other investigators at the SIU is another. But informing a reporter about how my boyfriend is inappropriately texting me in order to distract me on live television is its own ordeal.”

“You’re right. All of your fan-girls would be devastated to hear that the Detective Prince’s heart has already been stolen by a boy with a criminal record.”

“Your criminal record isn’t public knowledge you know,” Goro points out, “Although I suppose that if everyone at your school knows then it wouldn’t take long for the rest of Shibuya to discover that,” then again, distracting the public with his love affair to draw them away from the Phantom Thieves for the time being may not sound like such a bad idea.

“Eh, wouldn’t be any different to how I’m treated now I guess,” Akira says as if he was reading Goro’s mind. Goro hears a heavily muffled voice coming from the other side of the phone, and Akira clearly holds his phone away from himself when he says, “it’s not like you’re doing anything in the morning... fine, I’ll hang up soon. Happy?” His voice becomes louder soon after, “Sorry, my housemate’s telling me to go to sleep.”

“You have a housemate? How am I hearing about this for the first time?” Goro asks, surprised and a little upset that Akira hadn’t told him this before.

“Uh, well, he’s not really my housemate. I’m talking about my cat. Just at night there’s no one really around so I end up talking to him a bunch instead. He meows a lot and half the time I can kinda tell what he’s trying to say. He just woke up so I’m guessing he’s not too happy with me.”

Goro was pretty sure he heard a voice on the other side, not meowing. Perhaps the distortion over the phone had made the meowing sound more like muffled chatter, “Ah, I see. Well then, I suppose I should let you sleep now. Thank you for talking to me this late.”

“Hey, that’s what I’m here for, you don’t need to thank me.”

“I still feel compelled to do so.”

“Ever the good-mannered honour student.”

“At least I’m not a crazy cat lady.”

“Hey I resent that!”


	11. 7/29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The least Goro could do was give Akira a little warning before accusing him and his friends of being connected to the Phantom Thieves.

_‘It seems you’re all connected to the Phantom Thieves somehow. Perhaps you have better intel than I do.’_

It had been a few days since that fateful run in with Goro at the train station. Since then, Akira hadn’t been able to even talk to him. He knew his boyfriend was busy but stonewalling him after that accusation was a little harsh, not to mention uncalled for.

_‘In a way, all I’ve just said about the Phantom Thieves coincides with the group you have here.’_

What the hell was that supposed to mean? If Goro thought he was the leader of the Phantom Thieves, which coincidentally he was, then why wouldn’t he talk to him about it first before saying all of that in front of his friends? What else did Goro know that he wouldn’t tell Akira?

Akira lies on his bed, his frustration with his boyfriend growing deeper and deeper until he hears his phone go off. He quickly reaches for it, causing Morgana to yelp at the sudden movement, but frowns when he sees that it’s the Phantom Thieves group chat. He considers answering it in the morning since they’d already taken care of Futaba’s palace, but his curiosity gets the better of him and he opens it up.

Which he immediately noticed was a mistake.

> Vulgar Ape: **Okay I don’t think I can hide it anymore**
> 
> Kitty Woman: **Ryuji!**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **Sorry @Akira, but Akechi is seriously starting to piss me off! I mean, what does he know about the Phantom Thieves?!**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **Even we know more about who might be behind the mental shutdowns!**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **But then he goes off and says we’re doing the wrong thing?!**

_Understandable_

> Shoulder Pads: **Calm down, Ryuji.**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **I doubt he’s saying everything he knows on TV.**
> 
> Clown: **I understand that you might be angry at him about his latest interview.**
> 
> Clown: **However, I am starting to worry that he is correct.**
> 
> Kitty woman: **Well, he’s right that we don’t have a direct way of dealing with Medjed. Not like before anyway.**

He realises that the chat would log when he’d seen the messages, and quickly types out his own thoughts on the matter before the others became suspicious of his silence. 

> Coffee Boi: **I can’t blame you for being angry at him @Ryuji**
> 
> Kitty Woman: **Has he told you anything?**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **Of course not.**

He did have that phone call with him twenty days ago.  

> Coffee Boi: **Well he’s upset that people are slowly starting to hate on him right now because of what he said.**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **But he’s not said anything that involves us, Medjed or the mental shutdowns when we’ve been alone.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **...is it wrong that I don’t particularly feel bad about that?**

_From Ryuji’s point of view? Probably not, no._   

> Vulgar Ape: **His popularity thing I mean.**

“I guess I see where Ryuji’s coming from,” Morgana interrupts Akira’s train of thought, reading the texts over his shoulder, “After all it kinda seems like Akechi has it all, no? Even with his fall in popularity there’s still plenty of people who support him and agree with him.”

_That’ll change once we take down Medjed._  

> Coffee Boi: **Morgana agrees with you.**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **And like I said, I can’t blame you either.**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **How are you holding up with all this anyway? @Akira**

That was a complicated question to answer to say the least. Since discovering that Goro was most likely going to pursue them, Akira decided to put a bold line between himself as Joker, leader of the Phantom Thieves and Wild Card, and Akira Kurusu, regular high school student and boyfriend of Goro Akechi. It was a finer line to walk than he first thought, but as long as the two never had to come together because of the detective then things would work out fine.

> Coffee Boi: **Right now, I’m just trying to separate my feelings between Akira and Joker.**
> 
> Kitty Woman: **So, at any given moment you’re in denial about something?**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **Kinda actually yeah.**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **It’ll work itself out.**

_It has to, or I’ll be the next psychotic breakdown victim._

> Clown: **I hope you are right, Akira.**
> 
> Clown: **But before we deal with the public, we must first stop Medjed.**
> 
> Clown: **How is Futaba doing?**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **Still asleep.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **Seriously?! Is she hibernating?!**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **¯\\_(** **ツ** **)_/¯**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **You are far too laid back about this!**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **Morgana agrees with me.**

“No, I don’t!” Morgana argues, “But I guess there’s not exactly much we can do...”

> Coffee Boi: **We’ve already looked for alternatives and there aren’t any.**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **I have faith in Futaba.**
> 
> Kitty Woman: **Akira’s right! She’ll definitely wake up!**

With no one else replying, his phone turns to standby on its own, and Morgana goes back to his usual sleeping spot on Akira’s bed.

However, Akira can’t stop himself from trying to contact Goro one more time before going to sleep. Morgana opens one eye when he hears Akira’s nails tapping quickly on his phone.

“Phantom Thieves?”

Akira shakes his head, “Goro.”

“Just don’t stay up too late, alright?” are Morganas last words before Akira hears his breathing patterns changing, signifying his slumber.

It takes seventeen minutes for Akira to finally craft the message he wanted to send his boyfriend, and he eventually presses send before placing his phone on the windowsill and curling up in bed.

‘ **Hey, I know it’s late, but I just wanted to say that I’m not mad at you. Not anymore anyway. I wanna talk to you about what happened at the station the other day, but mostly I just wanna know that you’re safe. Not physically, I saw your interview today, so I know you’re fine but... well, you get it. Anyway, message me whenever you’re able to, and if you can’t then... I hope you’re okay.** ’

At 4 in the morning he’s woken up by the buzzing at his side, and he looks back to see if it had woken up the cat. Somehow, it hadn’t, which Akira was more than grateful for.

He sleepily reaches for his phone and cringes when the light from it shines into his eyes. Once his eyes adjust to the sudden light, he’s able to read the text,

‘ **Thank you for your concern. I apologise for all that’s happened and for not giving you an explanation. Perhaps I could make up for it and explain myself this Sunday?** ’

Akira considers leaving the detective hanging just like he’d done for the past few days, but couldn’t contain his excitement about being able to finally see Goro alone again,

‘ **It’s a date.** ’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In celebration of me finishing the second part of this, I’ll be posting two chapters today!
> 
> Thank you all so much for the kind words you’ve been sending me, I really appreciate it!


	12. 7/31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira wasn’t joking when he said he knew everything about Goro.

Despite Goro’s best efforts, Akira had dragged him from Shibuya station all the way to Ginza, without even telling him so much as what they were doing there, Akira having only told him that he had to follow him.

“Was it not my turn to choose where we should go for our next date?” Goro asks while they pass multiple upscale shops, holding onto each other’s hands tightly. Goro didn’t miss any of the looks that the two were getting, though he was hardly surprised. After all, what good could two school students be up to when walking through one of the most expensive streets in the world.

“Yeah, well, you can get the next one,” Akira replies almost dismissively as he squeezes Goro’s hand, holding tightly onto him, “I know things have been getting complicated for you, so I decided to take your mind off it.”

“And you decided that the way to do that was to confuse me by takin me to Ginza?” Akira was here on probation and as Goro had learned, he lived in an attic so how exactly was he going to afford whatever it was he was planning to do with him?

Akira smirks, easily figuring out what it was that was on Goro’s mind, “No, I plan on takin your mind off by taking you out for dinner. My treat.”

“In Ginza? I thought I was the one who had upset you in the first place,” he looks to Akira, who had pursed his lips, “I… I’m not trying to complain. I am curious about how you could even afford to do this though.”

“I can afford this through the standard way that students who aren’t famous detectives afford to go on dates, by working multiple part time jobs at the same time and saving up.” This was complete bullshit. Akira hadn’t gone to any of his part time jobs in a month but had instead used his free time to go to Mementos on his own and threaten Shadows until they gave him money. The Phantom Thieves had their own money, but he felt bad taking it for something that didn’t involve any of the Thieves. The irony of exploiting the cognitive world for his own selfish needs to avoid having a heavy conscience did not fall flat on him.

Goro decided it was best not to question it any further since he himself had little idea about how much Akira could earn over the past few months with all of his part time jobs. Shortly, the two halt in front of a sushi shop, and Akira takes a bold step forwards,

“Aren’t you coming?” Akira looks back at the other when he doesn’t follow him immediately.

“How did you know that I liked sushi?”

Akira smirks once again, “Everyone likes sushi. And if you won’t believe that then I’ll give you a hint; I have a secret informant who knows everything about you.”

Goro raises an eyebrow, “the younger Niijima sister told you about the time I convinced Sae-san to take me out for sushi in exchange for my input in the mental shutdown case when you complained to her about not knowing where to take me, correct?” He deduces, which prompts Akira to slump a little in his posture.

“Yes, okay Makoto told me that you did that. Which, by the way, makes you a total slut,” Akira points out with a grin. Goro walks over to the door, quickly pecking Akira on the cheek as he passed him.

“For free sushi? Absolutely,” he opens the door, holding it open for a cackling Akira.

* * *

‘The Phantom Thieves will definitely win against Medjed!’

‘I don’t want to doubt them but…’

‘Have the Phantom Thieves said anything?’

‘What sides Akechi on anyway?’

‘Who cares? I just hope that the Phantom Thieves win’

‘I guess the police have been completely useless so far.’

* * *

The date itself was quite nice and definitely helped Goro take his mind off the negative public comments. However, the date had taken a worse as the two boys made their way back. Walking through Shibuya only lead them to hear passer-by’s whispering about the detective and the comments he made on TV. A couple of people seemed to doubt the Phantom Thieves, but it didn’t seem like anyone was on Goro’s side, or even cared what he had to say on the matter any longer.

Akira holds tightly onto Goro’s hand as they navigate silently through the crowds in the city. After the long walk from the station, they reach Goro’s apartment block, “Sorry about that, I didn’t expect everyone around us to be so vocal…”

Goro takes his keys out of his pocket, “No, don’t blame yourself. Besides, our meal tonight has definitely improved my mood. In fact, I found that I wasn’t particularly bothered by all of the rumours going around. Will you be staying over?”

Akira shakes his head, “No, I’ve got some stuff I need to do in the morning, but it makes me happy to hear that you’re feeling better.”

Goro hums positively, “Yes, I believe that you may be the reason why. Whenever I’m around you, the only person whose opinion of me matters is yours.”


	13. 8/28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goro finds his new favourite café

Akira stands behind the bar at Café Leblanc, in his usual stance, with his hands in his pockets and green apron hanging off of his neck. Today had become yet another day of babysitting Futaba since the Phantom Thieves decided to accept her as one of their own. He didn’t mind it. There was very little he could do anyway with his boyfriend busy with the backlash he was getting since Medjed had been taken down, his friends helping him with Futaba and most other people he knew busy with their own lives.

While Akira, Futaba and Sojiro wait around for customers to show up, Sojiro brings up the topic of their beach trip tomorrow, which soon devolved into an explanation of Akira getting rained out during the fireworks festival.

“Fireworks, huh?” Futaba mutters, something that Sojiro apparently doesn’t hear but Akira takes note of. Akira had started to notice that Futaba often didn’t tell anyone about her plans until it was too late, and Akira was beginning to worry that this was one of those moments.

However, before he could get the chance of warning her not to do anything dangerous, Leblanc’s bell rings, signalling the entrance of a customer.

“Hello,” the customer says, and Akira watches Futaba run behind him.

_Wait a minute._

“Oh... welcome,” Sojiro replies, as awkwardly as he always did with new customers.

Akira turns his head and locks eyes with Goro, Futaba still pressing against his back. Both of their eyes go wide with realisation.

“What are you-,” they both pause and smile.

“You know each other?” Sojiro asks, and Akira hits himself mentally for having forgotten to tell Sojiro. Of course, they’d become public knowledge but Sojiro was never interested in gossip and never really asked Akira where he was off to whenever he left the café, “Wait... aren’t you-?”

“I’m Akechi,” Goro quickly interrupts him, turning to the older man.

“Oh yeah, the one on TV and stuff. So, what brings you here, Mr. Detective?”

Akira shifts slightly into a more comfortable stance, almost forgetting about the presence behind him, “I was wondering when you’d show your face around here. You took your time.”

Just as Sojiro’s about to tell him off for being rude to their newest customer, Goro chuckles, “In truth I’m actually here because Sae-san told me about this place. I had no idea I would find you here as well.”

At the mention of the older Niijima sister, Akira could swear he could hear Sojiro growl, “I already told her everything I know. There’s nothing more I got for you people.”

Goro quickly shakes his head, “Oh, no, that’s not why I’m here. I just came here to enjoy a nice cup of coffee.”

“Oh... uh, right, of course,” Sojiro answers, once again in his awkward tone of voice, “Well, I’ll get right on that,” he moves past Akira and towards the coffee siphon, which results in Akira having to shift slightly. Futaba continues to make sure to be hidden away from the newcomer, despite him sitting down and putting his attaché case on the seat next to him.

“Who’s your friend?” Goro asks Akira while he glances towards the red head behind him. A flash of recognition passes by Goro as he realises who she might be, “Oh you must be Wakaba Isshiki’s-“

“What’ll it be?” Sojiro quickly interrupts him, and Goro swiftly turns his attention back to him.

_How does Goro know about her? Well, I guess he does work for the SIU and he’s investigating the mental shutdowns as much as we are... if any name should come up for that case, it would be hers._

“I’ll have whatever you recommend,” Goro clearly drops the topic as Sojiro gets started on his coffee. He looks back to Akira, “I take it that this is more than just a place of work for you?”

Akira replies by pointing upwards, “upstairs is my home until my probation ends. But I help out Boss from time to time. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t look up your address when I went through your file,” Goro informs him, “Although I was tempted to since you seemed intent on keeping it a secret.”

Akira shrugs, “More like I didn’t really think to say it. I mean, I like living here but your apartment is way roomier and a lot less dusty than the attic here.”

“Is that where you’ve been spending your nights?” Sojiro asks him as he pours Goro’s coffee into a cup, “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you trying to sneak in early in the morning. I had half a mind to call the police, but your friend Ann reassured me that you weren’t up to anything bad,” he places the cup in front of the detective but lifts up his hand when Goro tries to pay for it, “The first ones free of charge. That’s what I’ve been doing with all of the kid’s friends.”

Goro smirks, but Akira can tell that it’s fake, “Should I be concerned by the obvious fact that Akira has invited his friends here but never once offered to show me?” There’s clearly some bitterness in the statement, and Akira is pretty sure he can detect jealousy too.

“‘Invited’ is a bit of a stretch,” Akira replies, rubbing the back of his neck, “it’s more like they follow me here or Boss lets them in,” Futaba elbows him in the back and he groans, “Ow! Well it’s true,” he turns his head to have her in his view, and she grumbles a response, “Okay you’re right, I shouldn’t be bad mouthing my friends when they’ve clearly done quite a lot for me,” Akira looks back towards Goro, while Sojiro grabs his packet of cigarettes and steps outside, “If your boss recommended this place to you before then why are you only showing up here now?”

Goro pauses, even his fake smile dropping from his face, “I... well, you’re probably aware of the Phantom Thieves recent victory over Medjed, and the consequent public opinion that has swayed in their favour. Our popularity appears to have an inverse relationship and so I’m finding it a little hard to find somewhere peaceful.”

Both Futaba and Akira look down, Futaba only humming in response while Akira speaks for the both of them, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Goro shakes his head and looks down at his coffee, “It’s not your fault,” _oh it absolutely is_ , “I... I’m sorry if I’ve been a bother.”

Akira glances back at Futaba, who thankfully gets his message and nods. She moves away from him and quickly makes her way upstairs without looking back, leaving the two boys alone. Akira steps closer to the bar and leans on his forearms, right in front of Goro, “You’re not being an inconvenience if that’s what you’re insinuating. Futaba’s learning to socialise anyway and we’re not exactly fending off the crowds here. So, tell me,” he takes Goro’s hands into his own, “what’s bothering you?”

“It’s a rather long story.”

“I’ve got time. He wouldn’t be too happy, but I could probably ask Boss to give me the rest of the day off if that’s what you need?” Akira suggests, but Goro swiftly shakes his head.

“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly impose like that. Although talking about my issues may prove beneficial,” Goro sighs, his gaze shifting from his coffee to his hands, both of which were fiddling with Akira’s fingers, “Before I was born, my mother was in a relationship with some low-life of a man. He impregnated her and discarded her the moment he learned that. She didn’t take that well and eventually committed suicide. Thanks to him, I was passed from foster home to foster home. Of course, I do quite well for myself now regardless of my past, however it’s hard for me to constantly pretend that my past hadn’t inflicted some form of lasting psychological damage.”

It was now Akira’s turn to look at their interlocking hands while he tried to come up with a suitable response, “I’m guessing the publics positive opinion of you felt like some sort of acceptance, so now that that’s being taken from you by the Phantom Thieves it feels like being passed around again. But if it’s love and acceptance that you need then you don’t need to look very far.”

Goro looks up at the same time that the other boy does, “Akira-.”

“I know what it’s like to be used and tossed around by shitty adults, and while both of our situations may be complicated, I want you to know that I’ll try my hardest to make sure that you never have to go through that kind of pain again,” Akira tries to reassure him, but Goro looks away, smirking sadly.

“And how are you planning on doing that? You’re a 16-year-old student on probation who lives in the attic of a coffee shop. Unless there’s an ability you have that you’ve been hiding from me all this time, I don’t see how you can help me.”

Akira bites his tongue when he almost reveals his own special abilities. This was definitely the worst time to bring up that he had the ability to change the hearts of crappy adults, and in fact he leads the team that had put his boyfriend in this mood in the first place, “Doesn’t mean I can’t be here and be supportive of your decisions. Plus, everyone seems to think that I’m some sort of crazy delinquent who’ll stab anyone who looks at me wrong so probably just having me around you as often as possible would work wonders for your public image.”

Goro lets go of Akira’s hands, and smiles, this time genuinely. He picks up his cup of coffee and blows gently, “Perhaps picking you up on this offer would be for the best. Purely for the safety reasons, of course,” he takes a sip of the coffee while Akira chuckles, happy that his humour still continued to rub off on the detective. Goro swallows the coffee and hums in delight, “It’s delicious. You get to drink this every day? I’m incredibly jealous.”

“I guess you’ve got another reason for coming here more often then.”

Goro smiles again and turns to look at the stairs that led to his attic, “I never thought that you’d be boarding at this cafe. It’s almost beginning to feel like we were fated to meet all along.”

Not long after, Akira let’s Futaba know that the two were done with their in-depth conversation, she appears at the bottom of the stairs and moves slowly to the last seat at the bar. It was clearly the one furthest away from Goro, but Akira still called it progress.

“I suppose I’ve found my go to cafe.”


	14. 9/6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goro’s name appears on the Phan-Site rankings.

As he waits at the subway station for the train to school, Akira glances down at the conversation he had with the rest of the Phantom Thieves a few days ago. It was when Goro had first appeared on the rankings that Mishima had set up, which worried Akira. His team wasn’t going to go after the detective but what if the man in the black mask decided that Goro was getting in the way of whatever he had planned? Akira didn’t like the idea of him being targeted, though his friends disagreed. 

> Vulgar Ape: **You guys see?! Akechi showed up in the rankings!**
> 
> Inari: **It’s most likely due to the negative comments he’s made about us.**
> 
> Kitty Woman: **Seems that way.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **Serves him right! He’s been a total jerk to us.**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **I feel kinda bad though.**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **I agree with Akira.**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **After all he is right about us using our power completely unchecked.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **You’re siding with him?!**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **No, but there is a chance that there’s someone else using the same powers as us for less than noble means.**
> 
> Alibabae: **Yeah but we’re gonna catch him.**
> 
> Alibabae: **And we haven’t done anything bad.**
> 
> Alibabae: **> :|**
> 
> Kitty Woman: **I mean I get where Akechi’s coming from.**
> 
> Kitty Woman: **But I also agree that he’s been a jerk to the Phantom Thieves.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **So, what do we do about it?**
> 
> Inari: **He may have shown up in the rankings, but Akira has already informed us that he does not have a palace.**
> 
> Inari: **Pursuing him just because he’s appeared in the rankings would be pointless.**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **Even if he did, this wouldn’t be about justice anymore. It would be a personal vendetta.**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **To the best of our knowledge, Akechi hasn’t harmed anything but the Phantom Thieves reputation.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **I guess you’ve got a point.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **Either way Akechi’s popularity is at an all-time low so he’s not exactly that much of a problem.**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **I don’t think we should ignore him altogether, though I suppose he’s dropped on our list of priorities.**
> 
> Kitty Woman: **Speaking of which, d’you get anything from your sister’s computer?**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **She’s not been home recently, she must be busy.**
> 
> Inari: **That’s quite problematic.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **Dammit, what are we gonna do? It’s not like we’ve got a lot of other options.**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **Don’t rush me. I can do this, but I need a little bit more time.**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **More importantly.**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **Everyone’s been on edge because of that tabloid article.**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **Make sure not to stand out.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **Don’t gotta tell me twice.**
> 
> Alibabae: **ಠ** **_** **ಠ @** **Ryuji**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **Hey what’s that supposed to mean?!**

“It’s quite warm out. I do hope this weather doesn’t keep up for much longer,” Akira hears a very familiar voice say. He looks up and a pair of red-wine eyes stare back at him, “It’s quite exhausting, wouldn’t you agree?”

He locks his phone and puts it away, “Your mood seems to have improved since Saturday. Break in the case?” Akira asks, though he wasn’t particularly hopeful about getting a specific reply.

Goro shakes his head, “Oh no, the police still have no leads and neither do I. However, did you know about the rankings on that Phantom Thieves website?” _That you’re one of the main targets on it?_ “it appears that my name was listed on there recently. It’s mostly likely for my disapproval of that group. Before I knew it, I turned into a bona fide villain,” the smile that appeared on Goro’s face worried Akira. Wasn’t he pretty self-conscious about this kind of stuff?

“And you’re happy about that? Wasn’t you saying that the Phantom Thieves were a dangerous group what got you into this mess in the first place?”

“You yourself said that they only target criminals, and if that’s truly the case then there’s no reason for me or you to worry about my safety,” Goro reassures him but that wasn’t going to stop Akira from doing just that. Goro clearly had no idea that there was anyone else using their methods, “I didn’t post my own name, though I can’t help but wonder if this will perhaps help me determine how exactly the Phantom Thieves are capable of changing one’s heart.”

Goro looks past Akira briefly, “Oh I didn’t notice it was this late. At this rate we’ll both be late for school.”

Akira turns to check the time and finds that Goro was right. If he didn’t take the next train, then he was bound to be late.

_But what’s life without a few risks._

“Isn’t your record pretty patchy already?”

Goro frowns, concerned by what devious plan Akira had in mind, “that’s different than being late. You know I have special permission that allows me to miss certain classes. However, I have never been late to the ones that I have attended.”

Akira grins slyly, and Goro realises he was right to be concerned, “Hm, well I guess the Ace Detective’s record will just have to be a little bit stained,” he grabs Goro’s hand and pulls him away from the crowds. Despite his verbal complaints, Goro was making no effort to stop Akira from pulling him. Akira knew he’d won.

“-and where exactly do you think you’re taking me anyway?!” Goro demands to know, but he gives himself away by blushing. Akira makes a sharp left turn and pulls Goro in front of him, turning him at the same time to face him. He then quickly puts his hand against the wall to keep Goro from leaving.

“Out of sight,” Akira quickly glances to his right and left, and when he’s certain that no one can see them, his voice drops, “After all, it would be pretty bad for the public to see you kissing a criminal like myself right now, wouldn’t it?”

Akira doesn’t let him reply as he presses his lips against Goro’s, causing him to drop his case to the floor. Akira puts his hand around Goro’s waist and leans in closer. With the element of surprise, it takes a few seconds for the older of the two to realise what exactly was going on, but once he does, he melts into the kiss, one hand wrapping around Akira’s neck while the other tugs at his dark curls.

Akira finally leans away from the kiss, giving Goro the chance to catch his breath again. In the distance, he hears the sound of a train arriving and tilts his head to the side to check the time, “Hm, if we continue like this then I don’t think we’ll make it for our first lesson.”

Goro blushes once more, “Y-you’re the one who pulled me into this. You do not have the right to play victim here.”

Akira smirks, leaning closer to Goro once again, his voice dropping seductively once again, “and what will you do to stop me? Have me arrested, handcuffed perhaps? Oh, but you already know from the other night that that doesn’t work on me.”

“I suppose I will have to find some other form of punishment then,” Goro throws back at him. However, as much fun as he was having fooling around with Akira and pretending to be a normal teenager, he pulls out his phone, bringing them back into the real world completely, “As much as I have enjoyed this little encounter, I really must go. I can’t afford to have my grades drop because of public indecency.”

Akira sighs and moves his right arm away from the wall, now giving space for Goro to easily walk past him, “Oh, before you go. Could we meet up after school?”

Goro smiles, picking the case off the floor, “After what just happened I believe that there’s no need to stay secretive about your true intentions.”

“What? I-,“ Akira asks, unable to hide his surprise at how direct Goro was being, “Oh ha ha, that’s not why I want to meet up later. Is it wrong to want to spend some time with my boyfriend outside of chance encounters again?”

“Of course not,” the intercom at the station informs them that Goro’s train was about to reach the station, “I’ll come to meet you at your school then.”

* * *

Akira barely has a chance to sit back down at his desk after having gone to the bathroom for Ryuji to get to the point, “Did you have fun sucking face with your boyfriend while the rest of us were here, quietly suffering?” He asks, sitting at the desk next to his while Ann sits at her own desk, turned towards Akira with Makoto leaning against her desk.

“With all the texts you sent us complaining I wouldn’t call it quiet,” Ann comments while Makoto rolls her eyes.

Akira just shrugs it off, “As a matter of fact, yeah. You jealous?”

Ryuji scoffs, “Hell no! Well I guess I’m jealous that Kawakami totally let you off with your bullshit ‘I got lost’ excuse.”

Makoto, the last person of the group that Akira expected to go along with this, nods, “Come to think of it, I’ve heard that a lot of teachers were being called into the teachers’ lounge for no reason at all, specifically when they were teaching your class. Might that have something to do with you, Akira?”

“I... uh...” he blushes deeply, unsure of how exactly he could explain his relationship with Kawakami to his friends. In the long run, he was trying to help her out of her crappy situation but from an outside perspective, all he was doing was exploiting his teacher both inside and outside of school, “I may have made this deal with her but I promised that I wouldn’t tell anyone about it. That was kinda part of the deal.”

Makoto shakes her head and sighs, “So, let me get this straight. You’re helping someone who used to be in the Yakuza, campaigning for a washed up politician at night, you’ve started getting lessons from a ten year old on how to shoot, you’re taking questionable drugs from a questionable doctor, you hang around with drunk reporters at bars in Shinjuku, you’re dating the detective who’s after the Phantom Thieves that’s currently famous for that very reason and now you’re saying you’ve got some mysterious deal going on with your homeroom teacher?”

“Well when you put it that way....” Akira trails off but Makoto is quick to argue again,

“What part of ‘keep a low profile’ don’t you understand?!” She hisses at him, trying to keep her voice low despite the fact that they were the only ones in the classroom for lunch.

Akira leans back in his chair and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, thinking of some excuse, any excuse for why he had such strange connections to people who at first sight he had nothing in common with.

_How did Makoto know about all of this, and why weren’t Ann and Ryuji surprised about it. Come to think of it, how did Ryuji know that I even saw Goro today? I specifically made sure that we weren’t followed._

“Ryuji, how did you know about me and Goro this morning?” There was no way his best friend wouldn’t immediately blurt everything out. Which was exactly what happened.

Ryuji points to Akira’s desk, where currently his cat was hiding, “Morgana told us everything when you were gone. He tells us everything.”

Morgana. Of course. How could he have forgotten about his loyal companion. Morgana was there for everything.

_Oh no. Morgana was there for **everything.**_

Akira looks down at the black cat, who seemingly wasn’t even bothered by how quick Ryuji was to sell him out, but seemed more angry at Akira who had clearly forgotten about how perceptive he was, “I... I can get you some fatty tuna tonight and we can call it even?”

Morgana grumbles as a response, curls up and shuts his eyes. Maybe he wasn’t angry with Akira, not for this morning anyway. He could try to get it out of him later.

He turns to look back to his teammates, happy to find that at least Ann was on his side.

“In Akira’s defence, he is the one who gets us all our weapons, medicines and all of the other things we bring to the Metaverse. The only person who could possibly think that Akira’s up to something and report him for it is Boss but he doesn’t seem to care about what he gets up to,” Akira would almost be offended if not for the fact that Sojiro’s obliviousness, or perhaps nonchalance, was what allowed him to get away with any of this, “And if anyone’s most likely to sell us out, it’s Ryuji.”

“What?! Hell no! I’m one of the first Phantom Thieves, why would I sell us out?!” Ryuji exclaims, proving the point Ann was trying to make.

Makoto interjects before Ann replies to stop the two from getting into an argument, the kind they had almost every other day anyway, “I think what Ann means is that you are usually the loudest about the Phantom Thieves. Luckily for us right now it seems like everyone’s claiming to have either been saved by us or to actually be one of us, but that might not always be the case. We already had Akechi suspect us of being the Phantom Thieves before we took down Medjed, who knows who else might be paying attention?”

Ryuji leans back in the chair, calmer now with Makoto’s explanation, “I guess you’ve got a point. I’ll try not to be as loud about it anymore. Anyway, I can’t be the only one of us who’s hyped for Hawaii, right?! I mean this time tomorrow we’ll be lying around on the beach or going sightseeing-“

Makoto decides to cut him off before he gets too excited, “You do know we won’t be leaving till tomorrow night?”

“Wait for real?!” Ryuji asks and slumps in his chair, “Aww man... well, I guess I’ll just have to look up sightseeing places in Hawaii till then. What are you guys gonna do?”

“Makoto and I were gonna go do some last-minute shopping for the trip if either of you want to join us,” Ann offers, and Akira shakes his head.

“Thanks, but I was gonna hang out with Goro after school. I haven’t actually told him about the trip yet, and I’m kinda worried about him.”

Ann raises an eyebrow, Makoto folds her arms and Ryuji leans forwards again, all clearly interested in what Akira had to say. He clears his throat before explaining, “Well this whole time he’s been pretty upset with how the public’s been treating him since he denounced us, but this morning he told me that he was listed on the rankings and he was actually happy about it. Like suddenly the fact that he had this massive target on his head made things much better for him.”

“Maybe he’s got some agenda of his own-,” Ryuji begins but Ann cuts him off by punching him on the thigh, “Ow! Just hear me out okay?! I mean, this just proves that people really don’t like him because of us, right? But if people suddenly started to hate us for some reason, who do you think they’ll turn to?”

“The polls have started to get quite aggressive,” Makoto admits, “If we don’t act soon then maybe public opinion will in fact turn against us.”

“Yeah but Akechi hasn’t got any influence in the Metaverse, he doesn’t even know about it! He’s been calling us villains but there’s no way he could actually prove that,” Ann points out and the bell rings, “Sorry Akira, but even I don’t know why he’s changed like this. Maybe try asking him later?”

Ryuji stands up and he and Makoto start to make their way out of the classroom, “Well, if I don’t see you today, I’ll see you at the airport tomorrow!” He waves off the two while Makoto gives them an understanding nod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys all seem to be dreading the next palace huh? Well... it’s not quite here yet, but we all know what’s gonna happen soon ;)


	15. 9/11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Akira’s out of the country, Goro stays behind to take care of a loose end.

Goro pulls the black mask over his face the moment he steps into Mementos. If his hunch about the true identity of the Phantom Thieves was right, then he shouldn’t have to worry about possibly running into them while he scoured the place. As much belief he had in his deductions, he also preferred being cautious.

**_Admit it. That’s not why you’re wearing this. You’re just pretending that the black mask separates Goro Akechi the detective prince from the psychopath in the black mask. Who are you trying to convince anyway? You’re a monster no matter how you look at it._ **

He stops at a wall, putting his back to it. He closes his eyes tightly and clenches his jaw. Now wasn’t the time for doubting his actions.

The principal has it coming. He knew about what was happening and yet indulged in Shido’s commands for his own selfish gains. And really, if he thought he could get away with all the mess he was unable to contain then he was simply delusional.

Then again, if Goro didn’t dispose of the Phantom Thieves at the next opportunity, he wouldn’t be surprised to find himself next on Shido’s hit list. Who needs an assassin that can’t kill?

Goro reopens his eyes, finally being able to mute all of the negative thoughts that he was certain were coming from Loki, and walks further down the train tracks, shooting and instantly killing any Shadow that stood in his way.

Eventually, he reaches the most warped part of the floor, where the tracks seemed to swerve and fold in on themselves and the tunnel lead into nothingness. He reloads his pistol and takes a bold step forward, disappearing from the main section of the floor and reappearing in a quieter, less windy area, with the principal of Shujin Academy standing a few feet away.

“You’re Kobayakawa, aren’t you?” His voice comes out different than it did in the real world, cold and warped by his mask. He holds up the gun and points it at the principals Shadow, “Answer me!”

“Y-y-yes! I am!” The Shadow answers, visibly shaking, “Y-you’re the one... the one that takes care of all of their problems! Please, oh god, please don’t kill me!” The shadow falls to its knees and begins to sob, “I beg you! I’ll get rid of the tabloids, I’ll find the Phantom Thieves, just tell your boss to give me another chance, it’s all I need!”

Goro walks closer to the Shadow and cocks the pistol, “You used the students who put their trust in you to do as you please. You covered up the horrible crimes of another for the sake of your own reputation. You blamed others for your own mistakes and tried to blackmail students to clean up your messes. After all that you’ve done, you still believe you have the right to forgiveness? To redemption?”

The principal shakes his head, which he held in his hands, and looks to the ground, “Please! It wasn’t my fault! I had to do it, it was the only way to catch the Phantom Thieves, I-!”

“Stop giving me excuses when you know they’re all bullshit!” Goro shouts, and kicks Kobayakawa in the head, causing the Shadow to fall onto his side. He needed to calm down. Not only did he not want to get into a full on fight with the Shadow, but he couldn’t allow himself to lose control, “At this point you’re nothing more than a sickness that is bound to infect everyone lest you aren’t disposed of. We both know what must be done. Have you any last words?”

The Shadow Kobayakawa sits up and tries to crawl away from Goro, who slowly walks around him and points the gun to his head once more, “I suppose that it is fitting that you choose to die just as you have lived. Cowering in fear from those more powerful than you while spitting on those bellow. You disgust me.”

When Kobayakawa looks up once more in a final attempt to plea for his life, Goro pulls the trigger at point blank, ensuring that the Shadow quickly dissolved into black fog.

**_Was that whole speech worth it? You could’ve just killed him straight away you know. Or do you still believe that talking to them and giving them a chance for an explanation truly justifies what you’re doing? Are you that desperate to regain your humanity?_ **

Goro closes his eyes again, shaking his head.

**_Oh, as if that would work. You’re smarter than that._ **

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Goro shouts in the empty area, clutching his head with his hands, pistol still in his hand, “You promised to help me get what I want, so why must you mock me at every turn?!”

**_I’m Loki, did you expect any less of me? Besides, you’ve fallen so far since meeting that Akira boy. He’s the only one who’s got any respect for you now._ **

“It’s all part of the plan,” Goro argues, his voice much calmer. Slowly, he could feel himself regaining control, “In the end, it doesn’t matter how everyone else feels. I’ll destroy Shido, no matter what the cost!”

**_Then we’re once again in agreement._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know. Goro and Akira deserve happiness but... hee hee hee... I’m evil and enjoy seeing my faves suffer.
> 
> But thank you all so much for the support, I honestly didn’t expect to be getting this much attention now but it’s really rewarding to see that you’re all enjoying this so far!


	16. 9/13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgana is still missing and after arguing with Sae, Goro goes to see Akira.
> 
> At least one part of Akira’s life seemed to be working out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here’s another chapter because I may be cruel to my fave characters but I could never be so mean to my readers!
> 
> ...not yet anyway

Morgana still hadn’t made it back to Leblanc by the time that Akira had come back from dropping everyone off at the station. He himself didn’t know what to think about taking down Okumura. He agreed that the vote should still be unanimous, but he also understood Morgana’s frustrations, especially those directed at Ryuji.

However, looking for a black cat that could be anywhere in the Metaverse, or in the city in the middle of the night by himself would’ve been a suicide mission. Morgana survived on his own before they met, so surely he would be fine for one night in Shibuya. Akira remains hopeful.

He changes into his pyjamas as soon as he gets to his attic and switches off his lights. Just as he’s crawled into bed, his phone rings and he reminds himself to mute it for the night. He checks the message first, hoping that maybe it was Futaba saying that Morgana showed up at her house, but is equally pleasantly surprised to find that it was Goro instead.

> Goro: **I know that it is quite late, but I was wondering if you were still awake?**
> 
> Akira: **I’ve still got some jet lag so I’m not actually too tired yet.**
> 
> Akira: **What’s up?**
> 
> Goro: **I had quite an unpleasant discussion with my colleague today and so I was hoping that talking to you would provide me with a distraction.**
> 
> Akira: **You want me to call you?**
> 
> Goro: **Actually, I’m just outside Leblanc.**

Akira scrambles out of his bed and walks down the stairs, taking two steps at a time. He unlocks the door and opens it for Goro, “You could’ve knocked. I probably would’ve heard you from upstairs.”

Goro walks in while Akira locks the door once more, fully expecting that Goro would stay for the night. After all, the last train back would be leaving soon, “I didn’t want to bother you if you had already fallen asleep.”

Akira shakes his head, “You could never bother me, Goro. Besides, I guess I could use some sort of distraction too,” he reaches out for Goro to take his hand, and as expected, he does just that, “I’d offer you coffee but...”

“I agree, it is a little late for that,” Goro catches on quickly and follows Akira upstairs. When Akira switches the light back on, Goro looks around the room, quietly taking notes on each little trinket and each small detail of the attic that Akira had made into his home. It only hit Akira now that over the entire length of their relationship, this was actually the first time Goro was in his room.

“I know it’s a little cramped but-.“

“I like it,” Goro says, letting go of his hand to walk over to the shelf filled with all the things his friends had given him on various trips, “This is my first time being here and yet it almost makes me feel at home. It’s a feeling I could get used to.”

Akira frowns, and decides to take a seat on his couch while Goro walks around, admiring his decorations, “What about your place?”

“My apartment is simply somewhere I eat, sleep, clean myself and occasionally lounge in,” Goro says, picking up the swan boat that Iwai had given him to look at it closer, “while it serves the purpose of a home, I don’t always feel like it’s a place where I belong.”

“Goro...” Akira trails off, unsure of what exactly it is he should say in this situation.

Goro sets down the swan boat, and turns around, “Oh, I suppose that sounded quite miserable. That wasn’t my intention, it was merely an observation.”

Akira pats the empty space next to him, and as much as Goro hated being told what to do as if he were an animal, he still complies and sits down next to him, “You’re free to come over whenever you like, y’know? Sojiro really doesn’t care about what happens here so long as I’m not committing any felonies. Just give me some warning since I tend to stay out late sometimes and lose track of time.”

Goro shakes his head, “No, I couldn’t impose. And even then, I often have to stay up late due to my work or any homework I may need to catch up on.”

“Then you can always just go downstairs and use one of the booths and come back up here once you’re done if you really think that I’d be that bothered by it,” Akira offers. He notices just how much Goro had started to fidget with his own hands since sitting down, and he gets an idea. He reaches for the controller of the old console he had and switches on the TV.

“What are you-?”

“You said you had a shitty conversation with Sae, you were upset before because your case wasn’t going anywhere and the Phantom Thieves are still trending around the country,” Akira interrupts him, and hands him the controller, “I only have some really old games but since conversation, food and sex haven’t helped you resolve any of your frustrations, I figure you might as well try this.”

Goro looks down at the controller as if it were a venomous snake ready to bite the second he touched it. He tilts his head to look at Akira again, and hesitantly reaches for the controller, “I... I’ve never actually played any video games. You may need to explain some things to me.”

“It’s easy,” Akira grins, happy that his assertiveness and directness was enough to stop Goro from arguing with him, “The game will pretty much give you a tutorial but if you’re stuck then let me know and I’ll help you.”

Akira stands up and walks over to his desk, deciding to use his time wisely while Goro worked out his frustrations.

“And what will you be doing?”

“Uh... crafting,” he could lie to Goro, but it was blatantly obvious that his desk was covered with half made lock-picks and smoke bombs. He was surprised that Goro wasn’t questioning that at all, “I’ve found that it helps me stay focused on one thing, so I’ve just been making random things whenever I’ve been free,” he quickly provides a half-assed explanation and Goro seems to take it at face value when he turns back to the screen.

They pass the next couple of hours mostly in silence. Throughout the evening, Akira makes the discovery that when he was busy concentrating on something else, Goro paid little attention to what he was saying, leading to Akira learning just how potty-mouthed Goro truly was. With each error in judgement or badly timed jump that Goro made in the game, he ended up swearing so much that it would put Ryuji to shame.

Akira found it almost endearing, since this was an entirely new side of Goro, one he never showed in public, and it was something that just made him that much closer to the detective.

He sets down the Goho-M that he was making to continue to watch the completely oblivious Goro play the game. Whenever he got to a particularly challenging part he would unknowingly stick his tongue out a little. Whenever he got passed the challenging part he’d show a toothy smile before going back to his concentrated expression. Whenever he had to scroll through text, he’d run a hand through his hair in an attempt to keep his hair out of his face, and despite his hair falling back to where it was a few seconds later, he continued to do so without realising how repetitive it was becoming.

Seeing Goro so at home, so relaxed and so open about his emotions makes Akira feel warm inside, and he wishes he could spend the rest of his days just observing the small things that Goro did whenever he was caught off guard.

“I love you,” Akira blurts out. It only hits him that he had said it aloud when Goro’s character in the game misses a jump, causing him to die. It didn’t matter. Akira didn’t regret for a second that he’d said those words.

“Wh-what?” Goro asks, slowly turning around to find that Akira had gotten much closer to him.

“I love you,” Akira repeats without hesitation, “I’ve loved you for such a long time, and I don’t care if you don’t feel the same way, or if you just don’t think you could say it right now but-.“

“I love you too, Akira,” Goro cuts him off. He stands up, abandoning the controller and moves closer to Akira. He reaches out with his hand, which Akira takes into his own and stands up, “I... it took me a long time to realise that I truly feel this way, perhaps even longer to accept it, but I guess there’s no reason for me to deny how I feel,” he smirks, and Akira uses his free hand to move a strand of hair out of Goro’s eyes.

“You never have to hide how you feel, not around me,” Akira cups his face with his free hand, the other still holding his hand, “I told you before, but I will happily tell you once again that I love that I can be the person you go to when you’re feeling overwhelmed, or frustrated, or upset, and I want to continue to be that person. I want to be the one person you tell everything.”

Goro glances down, clearly not wanting to meet Akira’s eyes, “And what if you don’t like what I have to say?”

Akira moves his hand to Goro’s chin and tilts his head up so that Goro would have to look him in the eyes, “There’s nothing you could say that would make me stop loving you.”

He slowly leans in closer to Goro, and pulls him into a sweet, soft kiss. But with all the emotions rushing through Goro all at once, it was this kiss out of all the kisses they’d shared that made him feel the most alive.


	17. 9/15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally having agreed on a plan of action, Akira feels like everything’s falling into place again.
> 
> But reality soon comes crashing down once more.

“We’re going to take them down!” Futaba announces, sitting on Akira’s bed. The Phantom Thieves, minus Morgana, had all managed to get back to Leblanc’s attic safely, but not without repercussions. Morgana had refused to go back with them and stayed with... Beauty Thief, another Persona user that had showed up. They were all exhausted and worst of all continued to have zero leads on the man in the black mask or the mental shutdowns.

“Akira! There’s someone here for you!” He hears Sojiro calling from downstairs. Just to double check, he looks around and accounts for all the Phantom Thieves. There was only one other person who could’ve possibly come over this late.

“It’ll be Goro,” Akira clarifies.

“Ah, understandable,” Yusuke nods and gets up from his chair, “It is getting quite late, and I cannot be the only one who’s exhausted from today. We should continue this tomorrow.”

Futaba also stands up and makes her way over to the stairs, “I’ll have a quick look on the Phan-Site and see if anything’s changed now that someone else is around. If I don’t conk our first anyway.”

She walks down the stairs first, followed by Yusuke, Makoto, Ann, Ryuji, and lastly Akira. She jumps to the ground on the last step, and walks over to the door, passing Goro in his regular seat, “I’ll be going back home, Sojiro.”

“Wait,” Sojiro says and takes off his own apron. He hangs it up and walks out from behind the bar, “If you’re all leaving then I might as well close up,” he looks to Goro, “Oh, uh, feel free to stay until you finish your coffee. He can let you out,” Sojiro points to Akira, and leaves first with Futaba.

Ryuji awkwardly glances to Goro, then back at Akira, “Right, uh, well, we should be getting back home too. We’ll see ya tomorrow.”

He leaves the shop, followed by the rest with their own goodbyes. Within a matter of seconds, it was just him and the unusually silent Goro in the coffee shop.

“Sorry about that, I did warn you that I might be busy if you wanted to stay,” Akira rubs the back of his neck. Instead of smiling at him or reassuring him that it was fine like Akira had hoped he would, Goro opens up his case and pulls out a file. He slides it down the end of the bar towards Akira.

“I won’t be staying overnight unfortunately,” he picks up his cup of coffee and takes a sip, giving Akira a chance to look through the file. It was all pictures of him and the others slowly disappearing from the real world and going into the Metaverse, “I have backups of course, and video evidence. So, tell me,” he turns to Akira finally, “When were you going to let me know that you’re the leader of the Phantom Thieves?”

Akira almost chokes when his worst fears are confirmed, “I... what?”

Goro rolls his eyes, an action that almost felt sarcastic, “Don’t play dumb with me, Akira. You knew that I was investigating the Phantom Thieves. Was this what drove you to talk to me in the first place?”

“Of course not,” Akira vehemently shakes his head, “Goro, I met you two months before you even mentioned the Phantom Thieves. How would I have known you’d come after us?”

“So, you don’t deny that you’re their leader?” Goro raises an eyebrow. It hits Akira that Goro was clearly not interested in discussing their relationship at the moment, that this was closer to an interrogation than anything else. Goro was after a confession.

“I’m... not going to deny anything, but I won’t confirm anything either,” Akira replies, carefully choosing his words, “How did you get these anyway?” Akira looks back down at the pictures. A few of them were a little blurry, clearly taken in the moment but it was still possible to make out all their faces, “Were you following me?”

“You think I’m so insecure that I’d follow you?” Goro raises an eyebrow, “I have some self-respect left you know,” he sets down his cup of coffee, “I was there to investigate a lead on Okumura foods and ran into you just as you were entering that other world.”

“You know about that?”

“I was pulled in with you, and I had already considered the possibility that the Phantom Thieves were using unconventional methods. Though I didn’t expect you to be so literal about stealing people’s hearts,” Goro explains, still in that calm, emotionless tone that Akira was beginning to dread.

Akira closes the file and slides it back down the bar, “Are you going to report us?”

Goro catches the file and puts it back into his case, which he closes up, “I considered that option. However, I realised that in the end it was pointless. The public loves you and it would be hard to pin any crimes on you with the lack of evidence, save for these photos. Even then, the police would still have a hard time arresting you. There’s one other thing that’s been bothering me.”

“That is?”

Goro gets out of his chair and picks up his case, “The mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns that I was originally looking into don’t seem to be connected to the Phantom Thieves after all. I’m only trying to catch the culprit behind those incidents, and if you truly are heroes of justice as you claim to be, then I’ve no quarrel with you.”

Akira exhales a sigh of relief, but immediately regrets it. At first, he was happy that Goro wasn’t going to arrest him on the spot despite all of what’s happened, but then all the other problems that arise from Goro knowing about them come crashing down.

“What does this mean for us?”

Goro sighs. It was a subject he knew he’d have to discuss but wanted to avoid, “I’m not sure. I need some time to process this. However, I promise to contact you as soon as I know what it is I’m going to do about this situation,” he turns around and makes his way to the door. The bell chimes when he opens it, but he pauses, letting in the cool air of the night into the cafe, “Oh there is one more thing I’d like to mention.”

“Yeah?”

“In exchange for me not handing you over to the police, I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell any of your teammates about this as it may hinder my investigation.”

Akira’s eyes widen, “You’re suspecting them?”

Goro looks down, “I’m not ruling out that possibility. I know I can trust you now, but I can’t say the same thing about your friends. I... I’m truly sorry that things had to turn out this way,” he replies in a sad tone, showcasing some real emotion for the first and last time that evening, the bell chiming once again when the door closes behind him.

Akira stands still at the end of the bar, trying to process all of the information he had received. In the space of ten minutes, which to him had felt like a lifetime, he managed to not only lose the trust of the person he cared about the most that he’d spent so long trying to gain, but now he had to lie to his other friends and pretend like everything was fine. The worst part was, they’d eventually find out and possibly turn on Akira too for not revealing it sooner.

Speaking of which, throughout the entire conversation, his phone kept buzzing in his pocket, his assumption that it was the Phantom Thief group chat, proving himself right when he pulls out his phone.

> Kitty Woman: **It wasn’t just me who thought Akechi was acting super weird, right?**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **Isn’t he always actin’ super weird?**
> 
> Inari: **I thought so too, @Ann.**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **I admit that it was a little rude of him not to greet us when we came downstairs.**
> 
> Alibabae: **Especially after we were so nice to him the other day.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **Are all of you just ignoring me now?!**
> 
> Inari: **In any case, as soon as you get these let us know what happened, @Akira.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **Now who’s being rude…**
> 
> Alibabae: ★~(◠‿◕✿)
> 
> Coffee Boi: **Don’t worry about it guys, he was just upset about something.**

As soon as he hits send, he locks up the café and goes to bed, at first opting to ignore the incoming messages which he assumed were just more questions about Goro. He gets back into his bed and lies down, but reaches for his phone some time later when he realises that he can’t get to sleep.

> Vulgar Ape: **Things are really heating up online.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **People are going on and on bashing on Okumura Foods.**
> 
> Kitty Woman: **Apparently they’ve been secretly using low-quality ingredients brought in from overseas…**
> 
> Inari: **Furthermore, any employees who were suspicious of Okumura were let go without reason.**
> 
> Inari: **That coupled with the mysterious death of a rival company’s CEO…**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **What’s this all of a sudden?**
> 
> Alibabae: **Things are going up in flames.**
> 
> Alibabae: **I don’t really get what kicked it off though.**
> 
> Kitty Woman: **People have been coming after us too. They think we should just hurry up and punish him.**

_Business as usual._


	18. 10/11

Goro starts to slowly walk away from Sae, trying his best not to grin at the outcome. Everything was going according to plan. Everyone had seen Okumura have a mental shutdown on live TV after the Phantom Thieves were asked to change his heart, Niijima was continuously under a lot of pressure to the point where she had accused him of stealing her data, and it wouldn’t take long for the public to start believing in himself and Shido.

With the elections coming up in two months, if Shido played his cards right, which he had up to this point, he would win it by a landslide, just as Goro was hoping. However, one problem remained, and it was the Phantom Thieves. By now they would definitely be going directly after the true culprit, which brought its own share of problems.

Goro needed the Phantom Thieves out of the way.

**_You know it must be done. You know that to survive you must kill Akira Kurusu._ **

_No, there must be another way_ , Goro thought. The current plan was to gain the trust of the Phantom Thieves, only to then capture them all and kill them in an underground interrogation room, where it would be revealed that they had a suicide pact if they were caught, and the entire situation would be swept under the rug. Alternatively, they could just capture their leader and fake his suicide, hopefully resulting in the total disbandment of the Phantom Thieves.

 _Perhaps if I convinced Akira that someone else is the man in the black mask and that I can catch him without his help then he would halt all the Phantom Thieves activities._ It was unlikely to really work with the strong sense of justice that Goro knew Akira had, but it was his best option to rid the world of the Phantom Thieves without killing Akira and without making Shido suspicious.

He pulls out his phone, quickly finding Akira’s number. He sends him a text, fast enough so that he couldn’t back out of the choice he’d made.

 

> Goro: **Can we talk?**
> 
> …
> 
> Akira: **It’s kind of been a long day for me.**

Since he’d revealed to him that he knew about the true identity of the Phantom Thieves, Goro had only shown up to Leblanc twice, and yet neither of those times did Goro speak to Akira about the issue at hand. In the wake of Okumura’s death, he wasn’t surprised that now was not a time that Akira wanted to indulge in that conversation.

 

> Goro: **Please, it’s urgent.**
> 
> **…**
> 
> Goro: **It’s about Okumura.**
> 
> **…**
> 
> Akira: **Alright, I’ll be waiting by the bar**

* * *

Goro steps into the café, bell chiming as he opens the door and it closes behind him. He finds Akira sitting in a booth, holding a cup of coffee. There was another cup of coffee waiting for him at his usual seat, steam still coming off of it. Akira makes no attempt to stand up, barely even acknowledging that Goro had stepped in.

He sets down his case on the seat next to the one he’d usually sit in, “What happened?” He asks, breaking the silence. Before he said anything, he needed to know exactly what Akira knew.

Akira takes a sip of his coffee and slowly sets it down, and when he first tries to reply his voice fails him. He clears his throat and starts again, “We don’t know. We did everything the same way as we had with all the others.”

Goro slowly pulls back his regular seat, “Kamoshida, Madarame and Kaneshiro are all currently waiting for their trails to proceed, none of them seem to have suffered any mental or physical damage as far as the SIU is aware,” Akira visibly relaxes a little when Goro informs him that Okumura’s case was different from the others, “Are you certain that nothing had changed?”

Akira nods slowly, and while waiting for a further explanation, Goro sits down in his chair and picks up his cup, “We did everything right but… There might be someone else, someone besides us who has access to the Metaverse. A man in a black mask.”

“Have you seen him before?”

Akira shakes his head, now lowered, but he appeared to be looking into the distance as he was remembering everything he’d been told, “No. Madarame and Kaneshiro had mentioned him. We think he might be the one behind all of the mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns. There’s a chance that he’s the one who was behind this one too.”

Goro takes a long sip of the coffee and sets down the cup. He turns around to look back at Akira, “That would make sense, after all, Okumura’s mental shutdown appeared as all of the other mental shutdowns that were described to me.”

“So, you believe me about the man in the black mask?” Akira finally looks up, right into Goro’s eyes.

“I’ve seen him,” Goro reveals. _Yeah, in the mirror every day_ , “I have informed you that I entered the Metaverse already, haven’t I? Well, not long after I revealed that to you, an app suddenly appeared on my phone,” he pulls out his phone and shows the glowing red MetaNav app to Akira, “I couldn’t help my own curiosity and decided to have a look into this Metaverse afterwards by myself.”

Akira looks up from the phone and back to Goro, “What did you do?”

“I entered Okumura’s Palace, as the navigator called it,” he puts his phone back into his pocket, “I made sure to stay away from anything that seemed sentient in case it became a problem, however… a man in a black mask, I assume the same one as the one you had described, found me.”

Akira gets up, leaving his cup behind, and walks over to Goro, “How did you manage to escape?”

“I didn’t. Not immediately. He had a gun pointed at me and he had me cornered,” he looks down, not wanting to look at Akira in case he was somehow able to tell that everything he was saying was complete bullshit, “All I knew at that moment was that I didn’t want to die. That I couldn’t die. Not before I came back and uncovered the truth. That’s when I heard a voice asking me if I was going to stay there and die, or if I would take charge of my own fate and fought back. Everything after that was a little bit of a blur but the next thing I knew, I was in an alleyway near Okumura Foods, absolutely exhausted.”

Akira reaches for Goro’s hands and holds them in his own, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.”

Goro shakes his head, “No, it was foolish of me to think I could go there by myself without any knowledge of the place. I’ve had some time to recover since, however… the experience gave me some perspective and I realised that if I had died then and there, then I never would’ve been able to see you again, or apologise to you or told you that I loved you again.”

“Goro… You have nothing to apologise for,” Akira lifts up Goro’s hands, takes off his gloves and sets them onto the bar. He lifts Goro’s hands to his lips and starts to kiss them slowly, “I shouldn’t have kept any of it a secret from you. Maybe if I told you earlier, then none of this would’ve happened.”

“Can… Could we pretend that none of this happened, just for tonight?” Goro asks, “I need a break, from the SIU, from the Phantom Thieves, from the Metaverse, from everything. Please?”

Akira stops kissing his hands and looks him in the eyes, “Of course, anything to make you stay tonight.”

* * *

Akira gasps as he opens his eyes, finding himself staring up at the decorated ceiling of the Velvet Room. He sits up on his bed and tries to rub his head, forgetting that every time he entered this strange dimension, his hands and feet would be shackled, an experience he had to go through once in the real world already and didn’t want to repeat again.

“On your feet, inmate,” he hears Justine say, “Our master has important matters to discuss with you. Heed his words well.”

He stands up and slides his feet across to the end of the cell, resting both of his hands on the bars of the jail cell. After half a year of this ‘rehabilitation’ he still felt uncomfortable each time he was called into the Velvet Room in his sleep. Couldn’t Igor wait until his next visit? He was planning on going soon of his own accord to ask about the mental shutdowns anyway.

“First, I’d like to congratulate you for expelling the one proud of their greed… or so I’d like to say, but something odd seems to have happened.”

“It wasn’t our fault.”

Igor nods once, “I know this, of course. However, what of the general public? It seems a contingency has occurred. At this rate, your rehabilitation cannot be completed…”

Akira was still struggling to understand what exactly Igor meant by rehabilitation He’d awoken to his persona and collected tens more since. Wasn’t that how he was supposed to break free of societies chains? The Phantom Thieves had gotten famous through their deeds and yet Igor still believed that there was more to be done. Did he mean for Akira to stop the man in the black mask? Had he known about him all along?

“…though I doubt that will be the case,” Igor continues, “There is something else that I have noticed. It appears that the one who was after you now shares your goals and possesses the ability to aid you in stopping the one hindering your rehabilitation, and yet you seem conflicted about having him join your cause.”

Akira looks down, “Goro isn’t like the others. We don’t know how strong he is, and even then, I don’t know how they’ll react to him joining us.”

Igor hums, “Yes, however, you have been able to form strong bonds with each of them. Do you truly believe that they would abandon you at this pivotal moment due to one error in judgement?”

Akira looks back up, “My teammates have trusted me until now, maybe I should have more faith in them.”

Igor waves his hand, “That must be your own call to make, trickster. I truly look forward to seeing how you overcome this predicament… we shall meet again.”

Akira hears the faint ringing in the distance, clouded by the noises of the Velvet Room.

“Time’s up, Inmate! Hurry up and return to your world!”

The ringing continued to get louder and louder. Akira takes a couple of steps back, feeling himself slowly lose conscience, and within a matter of seconds he falls back onto the hard bed of the cell.


	19. 10/22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the festival draws near, the group tries to convince Goro to speak as their guest of honour.

Akira puts a piece of paper reading ‘Goro Akechi’ to the side, putting a mark next to a short list of names that Makoto had compiled for the school festival guest of honour. So far, almost every paper he had read the detectives name, and as much as he loved him, Akira was getting tired of reading his boyfriend’s name hundreds of times.

“Dammit, we don’t have time to be doing crap like this!” Ryuji suddenly exclaims, getting Makoto’s, Ann’s, Haru’s and his own attention.

“You’re not even doing anything…” Akira mutters, but if Ryuji hears it, he doesn’t comment on it. Meaning that Ryuji definitely hadn’t heard him.

“You don’t need to keep mentioning it!” Makoto berates him, “We’re doing this to keep suspicion off of us, remember?”

“Goro Akechi... Akechi… Akechi…” Ann lists off, adding three marks to Goro’s name, “This one too, ‘Akechi.’”

Haru frowns at her list, “They’re mostly the same over here.”

“Everyone’s so eloquent when they can be anonymous,” Morgana comments, “it’s like we never existed to begin with!”

Ryuji groans loudly, shifting in his seat. He moves his right foot off of his right knee and leans forwards in his chair, phone still in hand. Morgana takes a couple of steps forwards on the table so that he could still read over Ryuji’s shoulder, “It’s the same as the Phan-site. Everyone’s loving Akechi and hating on us! What’s the deal anyway, it’s not even like Akechi’s actually done anything anyway.”

“It would be nice if you did something too, Ryuji-kun…” Haru says in her sweet voice. Anybody would believe that she was innocently trying to ask Ryuji to get him to help them but Akira knew it was a dig at his laziness, especially with what he’d said, “You did come here to help us count these, right? Come on, saying something to him, Akira!”

“Start taking this seriously, Ryuji,” Akira says in a monotone without looking up from his own sheets, completely missing the point of trying to sound motivational.

“Hey, I’m doing stuff to you know!” Ryuji objects, sitting up, “Like gathering info online and stuff! Oh no… this ain’t good.”

“’Criminal profiling’?” Morgana reads out loud, “’The acts of thievery committed by the Phantom Thieves are mere fakes, and their true goal is… murder?! Every heart they changed before Okumura was just a warm-up?!”

Ann sighs, “so now they’re accusing us of being a bench of killers.”

“This is so effin’ stupid… dammit!” Ryuji pounds his fist on the table in anger, causing some of the bits of paper to move around.

“Ryuji!” Ann exclaims, “Now we have to start over.”

Makoto stops Ann when she tries to collect all of the small pieces of paper into on pile again, “Don’t bother. We only had a few more papers to go through, even if they were all different names, Goro Akechi is still the obvious winner.”

“What?!” Ryuji shouts, “Akechi?!”

“What are you so surprised for?” Ann asks, leaning her elbows on the table, “We’ve been mentioning him this whole time.”

Morgana shakes his head, “It’s not that surprising, it’s because of us that his popularity skyrocketed.”

“We’re counting the results, can’t we change them or something?” Ryuji asks.

Makoto sighs, “He won by a landslide, everyone would know. Besides, the festivals less than a week away and I’m not sure we could get any of the other people that are listed here on time. At least with Akechi we already know how to get in contact with him,” at that moment, everyone looks to Akira expectantly.

Akira hesitantly pulls out his phone. For a month now he’d been avoiding a situation which would put himself in the same room as Goro and the rest of the Phantom Thieves, “Wouldn’t it be a little dangerous to bring him in? He still hasn’t mentioned much to me about the case other than what he’s said on TV but it already seems like he suspects at least a few of us.”

The others look away from him, each in their own direction to try and think it over, “You may be right but… So far it seems like we have no leads,” Makoto says first, “Futaba said she’s working on some lead but even she admits that it might be nothing. Maybe we could all talk to Akechi once again and gain him as an ally. It would be useful if we had someone with police intel on our side.”

“But wouldn’t he think that we were behind my father’s death?” Haru questions, “That’s what the police seem to believe in any case.”

Akira is hesitant to admit that he already knew what Goro thought, but in the end it seemed like this was the best course of action, “He thinks that the cases he’s worked on before and Okumura’s case should be thought of as two different incidents. I think if we ask him, he’ll likely agree to helping us out.”

“What about Yusuke and Futaba?” Ryuji asks, “Shouldn’t we ask them about this too?”

“Yusuke did say to message him if anything came up,” Ann points out, pulling out her phone, “I’ll ask him about it now. Anyone else want to ask Futaba?”

Akira brings his phone closer to him and starts typing out a text to the girl in question, “Leave it to me.” 

 

 

> Shakira: **There’s a small chance we may have to invite Akechi to the school festival.**
> 
> Shakira: **And then convince him to work with us by giving us intel on him.**
> 
> Shakira: **But before we do it we want to be sure that everyone’s okay with it.**
> 
> Goggles: **I’ve had no luck here** (๑◕︵◕๑)
> 
> Goggles: **So, if you think it’ll work and won’t completely blow up in our faces then go for it.**
> 
> Goggles: **But it’ll totally blow up in our faces.**
> 
> Shakira: **Uh…**
> 
> Goggles: **Just do it.**
> 
> Goggles: (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑

Akira looks up from his phone, back to the rest of the room, “I think Futaba’s on board… though she wants us all to know that she thinks it’ll blow up in our faces.”

Ann puts her phone back in her pocket, “Yusuke said that he trusts us to make the right call.”

Akira sighs, and looks back to his phone, “Alright, I’ll call him, but there’s no backing out once I do,” he finds Goro’s number and presses the dial number. He slides the phone to the middle of the table and taps the loudspeaker icon. After a few rings, Goro answers.

“Hello? Is something wrong?”

“Can’t I call my boyfriend in non-emergencies?” Akira asks, rolling his eyes.

“Is this what you meant when you said you were going to try and distract me during work? Then again, maybe I could do with a little distracting from you,” Goro says in a lowered, husky tone, and Akira becomes painfully aware of the fact that he had not informed Goro that he was on loudspeaker. Without looking up, he could tell everyone, even the cat, was giving him a questioning look and he wanted to avoid at all costs.

“Uh… haha, yeah I think this is a good time to let you know that I’m actually with Ann, Makoto, Ryuji, Morgana and Haru and you’re on loudspeaker right now…” Akira stutters out, blushing deeply. Goro, somehow sounding less embarrassed than Akira, sighs on the other end of the line.

“Of course I am” he mutters, “Well then, what can I do for all of you?”

“Not include us in one of your messed up fantasies with Akira would be a nice start,” Ryuji mutters and Ann deliberately stomps on his foot, “Ow! Okay but lets just all agree that I’m not the one who’s in the wrong here!”

“We were wondering if you could come to our school festival!” Ann says cheerfully, ignoring Ryuji’s moans as usual.

“Your school festival? I was expecting that Akira would bring me to that himself, actually.”

“Not with us,” Makoto clarifies, “as our guest of honour. Apparently, everyone here wants you to do the panel at our festival”

“Oh…” is the only answer that Goro gives, and it takes everyone a few seconds to realise they’d have to prompt him further.

“Will you do it?” Makoto asks.

“I… I’ll have to think about it,” Goro replies hesitantly and some muffled noises can be heard from the other side, as well as a few people saying his name, “I apologise but I’ve a press conference to attend to which is starting soon. I’ll send Akira my final answer as soon as I make a decision.”

Akira looks up at the others, and they all nod, “Alright, then, uh, will I see you later?”

“Unfortunately no, but I’ll come by Leblanc on Monday,” they hear some more muffled noises, “I’ll see you then.”

“Good luck out there,” Akira says and ends the call.

Everyone leans back in their chairs and exhale deeply as if they were all holding in their breaths when waiting for Goro to answer.

“I guess now we wait,” Makoto says.


	20. 10/24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dealing with his father in person was one thing. Listening to him lie on tv while earning the praise of the unassuming public was another.

Goro takes another sip of his coffee and hears the bell above the door of café Leblanc. He turns his head and as he hoped, Akira was standing at the door, some sort of white powder in his hair. With no one else in the café realising this, he decides to ask him about it later when they were alone, “Welcome home.”

Akira smirks, “Honey, I’m home!” he announces.

It’s unsurprising to Goro that he would be as domestic as possible. He sees the time on a clock near the door, and notices that he’d been waiting for Akira for over four hours now, “You’re back awfully late,” he points out, but Akira doesn’t explain himself. Not that Goro needed him to. He turns to Sojiro, “How has business been for you lately?”

“Take a look around,” Sojiro replies, but Goro doesn’t need to look to know that there was only one other customer in the café. With the four cups of coffee he ended up buying and drinking, he figured that he was the most business Sojiro had gotten today, “Is the Niijima lady doing well?”

Goro sighs and looks back down to his coffee cup, “unfortunately we haven’t seen each other lately. We had a… uh, difference of opinion.”

Suddenly, he hears the interviewer on the TV speak loudly. The other customer must have turned on the TV, “What are your thoughts, Representative Shido?”

Shido. Of course, it had to be his father on TV just when he was having such a pleasant day, without anyone at school or the media pestering him. Well life in general hadn’t gone great for Goro so why would he have a nice, problem-free day?

“It doesn’t surprise me that people say our country is lethargic. We’ve let these Phantom Thieves run amok.”

Goro notices that everyone was now paying attention to the TV. Why wouldn’t they? Shido always made sure to be at the centre of attention after all. Goro instead opts for looking down at the bar. He already had to listen to his disgrace for a father if he wanted to stay at the café. No one could make him watch his face too.

Out of the corner of his eye, Goro sees Akira put a hand to his head and close his eyes. Akira shakes his head, as if he were getting a sudden bad headache.

“…and because they’ve targeted only prominent figures, our government leaders have been hesitant to act.”

As usual, Shido was being ignorant of the larger masses. Goro knew that the Phantom Thieves had also been using Mementos, but unlike him they were using it to improve people’s lives by changing the hearts of those who’s desires were less distorted than the prominent figures Shido had mentioned.

“I apologise for any concern they may have caused and will henceforth search for an apt countermeasure.”

“That politicians really honourable,” the customer in the back comments while clapping. Goro would happily cut those hands off to relive the stress he felt was building, “I like how quick he says he’s gonna do everything.” _You fool, that’s what all politicians say to get elected._

“This is an important undertaking, and one I intend to confront with every asset available to me,” Shido continues and Goro doesn’t realise that he’d curled his right hand into a fist, “The selfish criminals enacting this ‘social reform’ are in fact the ones most deserving of reformation. Answering to the interest of the people as hastily as possible is my natural duty as a politician.”

_Bullshit. If you really cared about the people you never would’ve abandoned my mother in the first place and have me dispose of anyone who stood in your way._

“Man, this guy is admirable,” the customer continues to praise Shido and Goro ponders on how he could get the man’s full name so that he could find him in Mementos later.

“Rampant political scandals-,” _which you asked me to create and expose_ , “-thieves on the loose-,” _an unexpected side-effect of your plan_ , “…as sad as it is, this is the nation of our nation. We must resolve this problem, and I assure the people of this noble country that I will do just that,” _no, you’ll just sink it for your own benefit and drown everyone that you don’t believe is worthy of your time._

The segment appears to end, and everyone goes back to what they were doing, Goro slowly working on resolving his own frustrations with Shido in hopes that no one would realise just how tense he’d become. Luckily, not showing any signs of emotion was second nature to him.

“What’re you standing there staring off into space for?” Goro hears Sojiro say but continues to look away. The question clearly wasn’t directed at him.

When he starts to pay attention to his surroundings again, it’s the jackass in the back who speaks up, “That politician is honest and carries an overwhelming amount of charisma.”

The sentiment alone could’ve sent Goro out of his chair, rolling on the ground in laughter. Or have him break the cup and use the sharpest edge of it to slice the mans throat. Only time would tell which it would be.

“It feels like a trustworthy leader for Japan has finally come forth. Don’t you think, Boss?”

Sojiro looks up from the bar, “Sorry, wasn’t listening,” which was clearly a lie as far as Goro could tell although he was happy to hear that Sojiro didn’t seem to care for the election. At least the café owner was sensible enough.

When he finally feels calm enough to speak up, he turns his head in Akira’s direction, still looking down at the bar, “Labelling them as criminals is ignorant of their true nature. If these people attack others with no remorse, why would they make a teacher and an artist apologise?” He asks, now looking to Akira. Both of them were aware of the situation, but Goro preferred not to risk being under suspicion of the other two people in the café simply through not seeming intrigued by this.

This seemed to be enough for both men to go back to paying attention to whatever else they were doing, and Goro drops the act, wanting to move the conversation along, “I’ve decided to accept your offer.”

“Offer?” Akira asks, tilting his head as he had apparently forgotten about the panel.

“The panel at your school festival. Don’t tell me you’ve already found someone else?” He smirks, despite the fact that he did want to go.

Akira rubs the back of his neck, “Oh yeah, uh, no we were still hoping you’d agree so we didn’t plan a contingency. But, uh, that’s great. I’ll let the others know.”

Goro nods and looks back to Sojiro, “thank you for the coffee. It was delicious.”

“You’re welcome,” Sojiro replies as Goro gets out of his seat.

Akira’s expression changes when he realises that Goro was about to leave, “You’re going?” he asks in a disappointed tone.

_Well Shido could call at any minute with the election coming up and I’m not sure how I could explain a high-profile politician calling me at random hours of the night so…_

“I can stay if you want me to,” _way to be assertive, moron_ , “Although I may have to leave early in the morning,” Goro warns, but Akira just shrugs it off.

The younger boy walks over to one of the chairs and sets his bag down, the cat climbing out of it. As if he understood what it wanted, Akira opens the front door and lets him out. Goro’s absolutely certain that Akira was a cat in a previous life, “Lets go upstairs,” Akira says and points to the back of the café.

“Of course,” Goro replies and goes first, each step creaking differently with every step he took. He reaches the top of it and walks over to the desk, picking up one of the half-made items while Akira set his bag down by the stairs, “These tools… you use them in the Metaverse, don’t you?”

Akira nods, “Yeah… sorry that I lied about that too, but I think you know why I did it by now.”

“Can you teach me?” Goro asks, looking over to him, “I like learning skills that may come in useful. We could start with something simple, of course.”

Akira’s frown from earlier turns into a grin and he makes his way over to the desk. He sits Goro down on the chair before he collects all of the pieces he had either bought in stores or found scattered in the Metaverse, “Tell me what you want to make.”


	21. 10/26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite asking Akira to keep his revelation a secret, Goro himself confronts the rest of the Phantom Thieves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the last two chapters and this one are all connected, I’ve decided to post them all in one go. Also because I’m not quite sure when the next time I’ll be able to update this.  
> Enjoy! ^_^  
> 

“...Your friends from yesterday are here too, aren’t they? Can you bring them too, if that’s alright?”

“Did you set this up?”

“We only have ten minutes you know.”

* * *

Unlike the rest of the auditorium, all of the Phantom Thieves had noticed the small exchange between Goro and Makoto that took place on stage right after his phone call. Under any other circumstances, they would assume that he was simply asking her for the directions to the room, but they all saw from Makoto’s expression that there was something more to what the detective had said. This was further backed up by Makoto glancing up to Akira, Ryuji, Ann, and Yusuke and nodding in the direction that Goro went in.

While Ryuji looks down at Haru and Futaba to see if they got the message, Yusuke turns to Akira, “Has he uncovered our identities?”

Akira picks up his bag as soon as Morgana jumps inside, “Either that or he’s decided to invite us all out for takoyaki later.”

Now was definitely the worst time to joke. Goro had been playing him from the start, or at the very least since he’d entered the Metaverse in September, but Akira didn’t know why. Was Goro so afraid that he’d lose Akira if he revealed his true intentions? No. There was more to this. There was something Akira was forgetting, something that was slipping past him.

He has no choice but to comply, and so he follows everyone out of the auditorium. It doesn’t take them long to get to the PE faculty office where they all shuffle in, Makoto taking a quick look outside before closing the door to make sure they weren’t being overheard.

As soon as they’re all facing him, Goro pulls out several photos from the inside pocket of his jacket, “I think it’s best if we stop beating around the bush,” he throws the photos onto the table in front of him, and just as Akira had expected, it was the ones he’d seen a month ago, the ones showing them all entering the Metaverse.

“No!” Haru exclaims, placing both hands over her mouth in shock.

“That’s gotta be ‘shopped!” Ryuji shouts in denial, positioning himself as if he were ready to get into a physical fight with the older boy.

Goro shakes his head, “I assure you, these are all real. I took them myself last month while conducting my own investigation into Okumura Foods. I have video evidence too if you’re not quite convinced,” everyone, especially Akira, avert their eyes from Goro in case they were to accidentally meet his own, “Please let’s not feign ignorance. You can all enter the Metaverse, correct?”

“W-what?!” Ann asks and looks up first, “How do you know what it’s called?!”

“So, you don’t deny it,” Goro points out, and although it almost sounded smug, Goro was doing anything but grinning at the situation, “I can enter that world too. I know that when you all step into that world your appearance changes, and you gain special powers,” he pulls out his phone and shows them the glaring red eye app that was clearly the Meta Nav, “I’ve known about that world for a month or so, that’s when this app first appeared on my phone.”

“Dude... it’s the Nav,” Ryuji speaks what was on everyone’s mind. Everyone’s except for Akira’s.

Akira knew about it this whole time but Goro had made no attempt to reveal that yet. Was he going to? Did he expect Akira to say something? Did he still believe that one of the Phantom Thieves was the man in the black mask?

Goro continues his story, the same one he’d told Akira a month ago when reality came crashing down on him, “It was activated without my knowledge and all the scenery around me change. Quite frankly I still can’t believe it but-,”

Ryuji rolls his eyes, “We’ve been listening to you blab on for a while now, but cut the delusional-,”

“All of you are acting as Phantom Thieves in the Metaverse,” Goro cuts him off, “The circumstantial evidence against you is more than overwhelming enough, however I can now be certain that this is the truth as I have the same power as you.

“I don’t know what you think you’re trying to do here but-“ Futaba begins but Akira finally steps forwards and cuts her off.

“What are you going to do with this information?”

Goro already had everything he needed confirmed from Akira a long time ago, the only thing Akira didn’t know was that Goro apparently seemed to have decided to act on the information without first informing Akira.

Goro picks up the photos and puts them back into his coat pocket. The Phantom Thieves has seen enough, and he didn’t need anyone walking in and seeing them only to complicate matters, “I’ve been considering what needed to be done, and I believe that you’ll find my conclusions most agreeable. I would like you all to help me stop the true culprit.”

“True culprit...?” Yusuke asks, “Are you talking about the man in the black mask? If so, then how do you know of him?”

“I saw him myself, when I entered the other world,” Goro explains himself, “He is the reason I was able to awaken to my own powers. After narrowly escaping him, I knew that he must’ve been the one behind the mental shutdowns. I knew that he had killed Okumura and had the blame put on all of you.”

“This guy has a persona too...?” Morgana asks, forgotten behind some boxes on the table, but still in Goro’s peripheral vision. The guy in question whips his head towards the cat, eyes wide.

“Did... anyone else just hear that cat speak?!” Goro asks the others, eyes fixated on Morgana.

“Oh yeah, that’s Morgana” Ann explains, putting a lock of hair behind her ear, “He explained the Metaverse to all of us.”

“He’s a valued member of the Phantom Thieves!” Futaba makes sure to add. They didn’t need another runaway incident.

“R-right...” Goro looks to the others, not entirely convinced, “This is unbelievable... but I suppose that you all know things that I don’t,” he turns back to the cat, “Say... Morgana,” He begins, clearly uncomfortable when it came to talking to an animal as if he were a real person, “If you taught everyone about the Metaverse, then you must be the one who knows how to change peoples hearts, correct? I haven’t been able to solve that mystery yet.”

Morgana is eager to answer his questions, “We go to the individuals palace, and we steal the core of our targets desires, their treasure as we call it. Once that’s done, they have a change of heart.”

Goro chuckles, but Akira detects some hidden emotion behind it. Sadness? Anger? Disappointment? Whatever it was, it was the next to go on the large pile of questions Akira was making for his own interrogation with Goro, “I see. No wonder the police were unable to decipher such an MO.”

“Can we get back to the matter at hand?!” Ryuji asks, so far surprisingly being the most moderate out of everyone, “What exactly are you here for anyway?”

“I’d like to strike a deal with you all,” Goro gets back to the point, turning to face everyone once more, “I’d like to cooperate with you all and catch the true culprit.”

“And if we decline?” Yusuke asks the question no one else wanted to. They all knew the answer already, as much as they wished it wasn’t that.

Goro sighs, “I’ll be forced to hand over all of the evidence I have on you all over to the police, who currently wrongly believe that you’re all behind the murders.”

“They’ll treat me as my fathers killer?!” Haru asks, but she’s not the only one who responds to Goro.

“This ain’t a deal, it’s blackmail!” Ryuji shouts, and no one attempts to calm him down. He was right, plain and simple. Despite having already been on good terms with most of them via Akira, Goro had for some reason decided to destroy all of the trust he’d built through that act and Akira couldn’t begin to comprehend why that was.

“Call it what you will, I believe that this is the best course of action,” Goro shrugs, “Sae-san is spearheading this investigation, and the higher-ups are only concerned with settling the case. They want to capture the culprits behind the psychotic breakdown incidents and end the commotion. They are the ones who are putting immense pressure on Sae-san.”

“But they don’t even have any evidence!” Futaba blurts out, “They can’t arrest us!”

Goro shakes his head, “Even if there is no objective explanation to the method, it’s over once causality is established. Sae-san can’t make rational judgements at the moment. If she were to be cornered... well, I believe that she may even try to make up a confession.”

“Make it up?!” Makoto asks, but she’s interrupted by Ann who’s equally frustrated with the situation.

“They can’t do that! We haven’t killed anyone! And we’re still going to be arrested?”

Goro sighs once again, “I know this, but you’ll be found guilty of more than just murder if you’re caught.”

“Bullshit!” Ryuji shouts out, “This doesn’t make any sense!”

“I would’ve informed you all sooner however I’ve been trying to stop the flow of events happening like this since I found out... I’ve done all I can but the only thing I’ve managed to do is buy us some time,” Goro explains, and Akira supposed that it was some sort of reason for why he’d not told Akira about any of it. There was still one thing bugging him...

_‘Oh, I know a place! I wanna go to that huge pancake looking place we passed on the way here!’_

“And that’s why you want our cooperation?” Makoto concludes.

_‘Oh, am I mistaken? I thought I heard something about delicious pancakes...’_

“Yes. In return, I’ll turn a blind eye to what you’ve done. Those are my conditions,” Goro says, and everyone looks to Akira expectantly for an answer.

‘ _I’ve known about that world for a month or so’_

Akira didn’t have any answers, all he had were questions which still hung in the air, frustrations needing to be voiced. Instead, he clears his throat to speak up for the second time since they’d entered the office, “I’ll need some time to think it over.”

Goro nods, “I figured as much. It’s not a bad deal though,” he pulls out his phone to look at the time, “In any case, we should be heading back now. Although,” he now looks directly at Makoto, “I believe my business here is concluded. After all, you only invited me here to get intel did you not?”

Makoto stops herself from releasing her own sigh, and clenches the clipboard she held to her chest, “I’ll come up with something, although you should try leaving through the back door if you don’t want to draw any unwanted attention.”

All but two of the Phantom Thieves follow Goro out of the room. Morgana looks to Akira expectantly, “Hey? They’re going?”

Akira, who has his eyes on the door, shakes his head. He shuts the door, then turns back to Morgana.

“You noticed it too, huh? It was our conversation about pancakes.”

“Today’s not the first time Goro’s heard you,” Akira confirms with Morgana, “and yet this entire time he’s been lying and pretending like he can’t hear you talk. He must’ve awakened to his persona before June.”

Morgana jumps up onto one of the boxes on the table, “he’s definitely hiding something, not just from the Phantom Thieves but from you as well. I don’t think we can trust him any longer.”

Akira turns his head and looks out of the window, body feeling heavy and his stomach churning. It wasn’t the first time Goro hadn’t told him something, obviously, but this time it felt more than just forgetting to mention a TV appearance, or even telling him that he knew about the Phantom Thieves for some time. This is on a completely different level and Akira senses he won’t like the answer, “We’ll need to look into this more.”

Morgana nods, now making his way back into Akira’s bag, “Right. We should get the others on the same page as soon as the festivals over.”

“You should tell them,” Akira picks his bag up with Morgana inside, “I want to talk to him first. On my own.”

Morgana makes an expression that Akira could only interpret as him raising an eyebrow, “Are you sure? What if he finds out that we’re onto him?”

“I knew that Goro knew about us. I’ve known for a month but he didn’t want me to say anything in case one of us was the man in the black mask,” he reveals to Morgana, and somehow, the cat didn’t interrupt him after that, “He didn’t tell me that the reason he agreed to coming to the festival was this. I was going to ask him about that tonight. With any luck he’ll be willing to shed some light on this... or slip up and reveal his true intentions.”

Akira wanted, no, need it to be the former. There was an explanation for this, for all of it.

Goro couldn’t have been playing him all along, right?

* * *

It takes two rings of the doorbell for Goro to hear that someone was at his door. Between the time it takes him to cross from his kitchen where he was in the middle of cooking ramen to his front door he considers all of the possible people that it could be and consequently what he should do. Not that many people would come to visit him as is.

Shido never made any house calls, for which Goro could only be grateful. Sae knew where he lived but not only had she been stonewalling him as of late, she would only ever call whenever she had a query and ask him to meet her at the SIU headquarters. Akira would’ve also notified him if he were coming over, right?

Goro stops at the door, breath hitching. If it weren’t those three, then it could only be trouble.

His gun wasn’t too far. Maybe he could get it out of his safe before whoever was on the other side realised just how long he was taking to answer the door.

“Goro? I know you’re home, I saw the light from outside. Can we talk?” Akira’s voice travels through the door and allows Goro to release the breath he’d been holding.

Goro quickly collects himself and unlocks the door. With a click, he opens it for Akira, “I was expecting this visit. Although I did hope that you’d let me know beforehand that you were coming over.”

Akira rubs the back of his neck, “Festival only ended recently so I didn’t really have the time to let you know I was coming over. I haven’t even gone home yet to change.”

 _No innuendo? Nothing clever to say about letting me know beforehand? This is much worse than I anticipated_ , “I understand. However... I am in the middle of making myself dinner. I was thinking that I made too much so if you’d like then I could set an extra bowl for you?” Goro suggests, making his way back to the kitchen. Maybe he could postpone the entire conversation to a time where he was less sleep deprived.

_Who am I kidding. When am I not sleep deprived?_

“No, I...” Akira trails off but his stomach betrays him at that moment through its prolonged growl, and Goro immediately pulls out a second bowl.

The two of them stand in silence, Goro occasionally adding spices and seasoning into the ramen with Akira watching him. This would’ve been a peaceful scene if not for all of the tension and lies that hung above them. Eventually, Goro turns off the stove and pours the ramen into the two bowls.

He doesn’t look up from the bowl when he finally speaks, “I owe you an explanation.”

“No kidding.”

There’s bitterness behind Akira’s words, and Goro understands that but he’s not completely sure if he could explain the hint of sadness behind it as well. Maybe he was just imagining it, “I... it wasn’t fair of me to ask you to stay silent. I didn’t want your friends to hate you for something I did and so I decided that the best course of action would be to cast all the blame onto myself.”

“Goro...” Akira says, a little more softly with an apologetic look on his face.

**_You don’t need his pity_ **

Goro winces, and it if Akira sees it he doesn’t comment on it. He certainly didn’t need Loki’s input in this already difficult situation, “I knew they would cooperate with me if I had just told them about the man in the black mask but I didn’t want them doubting the actions of their leader,” he continues, voice still as calm as before, “That’s why I blackmailed them.”

“Are you sure that’s all of it?” Akira asks as if he were insinuating something, eyes still locked onto Goro.

_Of course not. There is a chance that if I can get you to believe that I’ve stopped the man in the black mask, if I can get you to stop being a Phantom Thief then maybe, just maybe, I’ll never have to tell you who I really am, what I really do. Most importantly, I won’t have to kill you._

“There... may be more to that,” Goro starts, but he can’t tell Akira anything. _Not yet_ , “However, that is my primary reason and the only reason that matters. I understand if you can’t forgive me for this.”

Akira shakes his head quickly, “Goro, the only reason why I’m upset is because I wish you would’ve told me you were doing this. You know, the others did start to like you no matter what you said about the Phantom Thieves, well, maybe not Ryuji, but I’m sure that they’d still want to help if you just asked them. It’s what we do.”

Goro finally looks up from the bowl, “Does that mean that you’ll agree to my conditions?”

“No, because of how you played things out I still need to talk to everyone else and make sure we’re all on the same page now,” Akira answers honestly, “But seriously, next time you want to do something like this, talk to me first. Really, don’t think I’ll run away so easily. You can trust me,” he grins, and Goro can’t help but smirk. Inevitably, there’s dark undertones to his own smirk.

“Trust?” Goro replies, “I suppose it has and will continue to take some time for me to fully trust someone,” he turns to Akira entirely, “Although I would like to think that you are that someone...”

**_You think that you deserve Akira’s trust? Oh please, we both know that you’d turn on him in an instant if it meant you could get your revenge._ **

Goro suddenly shuts his eyes tightly and puts a hand to his head.

“Are you okay?” Akira acts immediately, stepping up closer to him and positioning his arms around Goro in the off chance that he’d collapse.

“Yes, I’m... quite alright,” he says with a groan, “It’s a migraine, that’s all. I... get them quite often so it’s nothing you should concern yourself with.”

Akira couldn’t help but smirk, “If you think that I’ll ever not be concerned about you then you’re a much worse detective than I took you for,” once he’s certain that his boyfriend wouldn’t pass out, he starts to rummage through his cupboards until he finds a glass. He pours some water into it and leads Goro over to his kitchen table. He has Goro sit down and places the water in front of him, “I’ll get the ramen, you just drink that. Do you have any painkillers or anything you take when you get like this?”

Goro nods slowly, eyes still shut, “In my nightstand... there should still be one more leaf of painkillers left.”

He hears Akira leave his side and opens his eyes just enough to see if Akira was making his way back before whispering sharply, “Whatever you think of this circumstance, its in all of our best interests for you to stay quiet. I don’t need to accidentally expose my true intentions only due to your constant drivel.”

For the rest of the night while Akira nurses the migraine Loki had given him, neither of Goro’s personas made a peep.

Akira and the other Phantom Thieves didn’t seem to get migraines like he did from his personas. He truly was special.


	22. 10/28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira is still hopeful that Goro will tell him the truth. Nevertheless, he still has a favour to ask of Futaba

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little later than I was hoping to, but also earlier than I was expecting, I’m finally posting this chapter! 
> 
> Thank you all for your continued support!

“Let’s call this a day then, and resume this tomorrow,” Goro decides after Makoto insists that she can’t go to the palace.

“I’m sorry, everyone,” Makoto apologises once more, then stands up, gets out of her booth and leaves.

Akira could tell that this whole arrangement was heavy for her in particular. Not only was she cornered into working with Goro, they were all going after her sister to stop the man in the black mask from getting to her first. On top of it all, they agreed to disband once the true culprit was arrested.

Akira himself was convinced that the last part of their deal was a ruse on both ends. Goro was still clearly hiding something, and depending on what it was, Sae Niijima’s Palace may not be the Phantom Thieves last heist.

Slowly, the rest of the group pour out of the café, each with their own plans. The only ones that remained were Akira, Morgana, Futaba and Goro, the latter of who clearly had too much time on his hands now that he stopped doing interviews and was no longer working with Niijima.

“I actually have the rest of the afternoon off as I expected to go to the Palace today,” Goro says, reading Akira’s mind, “Perhaps if you’re not too busy then we could-,”

“Sorry Akechi,” Futaba butts in and grabs Akira by the wrist, “but there’s a couple of things I wanted to talk to Akira about before we go to our last palace,” she makes no attempt to hide just how much she dislikes the ace detective for blackmailing them and attempting to disband their friend group, “Don’t worry, it’s all just strategy. We can give you the sparknotes tomorrow.”

Goro raises an eyebrow, confused by her allegory, “Sparknotes…?”

“She means that we’ll just give you a summary tomorrow,” Akira clarifies, and Goro replies with a simple ‘Ah’ to show his understanding, “She’s right though, it’s just about trying to get as much info on her as possible for tomorrow…” this was only half right.

Akira had previously made it clear to Futaba that he needed to talk to her and only her (possibly with the presence of Morgana), and Goro was definitely not supposed to be part of that conversation. Although with Makoto gone, the next best expert on all things Sae Niijima would unquestioningly be the detective standing in front of him who had been working with her for the better part of the year, “actually, if you have any info on her at home that you could send over it would probably be helpful. I’ll text you once we’re done though and I can come over to yours? You live closer to my school after all.”

Goro is still clearly suspicious of their behaviour, but he doesn’t seem to question it any further. Instead, he picks up his attaché case and moves towards the exit, “Well then, if you aren’t able to make it to mine later then just let me know what time we’ll be meeting at the courthouse,” he turns his gaze from Akira to Futaba and Morgana, “Sakura-chan, Morgana, I shall see you tomorrow,” he looks back to Akira, “Hopefully I’ll be seeing you later.”

When the door finally closes, Morgana releases a breath he didn’t seem to realise that he was holding in, “I thought he’d never leave! You know, this would’ve probably been a lot easier if you stopped this the moment you heard he was going after us.”

Akira shrugs, “For all we know he would’ve still blackmailed us and had us disband anyway. Or arrested us. Or worse,” depending on what it was that Goro was hiding. Akira had to start thinking more positively again or he was going to lose his mind, “At least like this there’s still some small hope that if Goro is involved in something bad then I can maybe help him or convince him to work with us.”

Futaba lets go of Akira’s wrist, “You think he’s a victim?”

“You heard him, didn’t you?” He points to where Goro was standing by the bar as they were discussing their next move, “just like the rest of us he started doing all of this over his own grudge against some adults that clearly screwed him over. He’s always been secretive about his past but maybe there’s a reason for it.”

Futaba hums lowly in response, “I mean… I guess I see where you’re coming from but at the same time wouldn’t he have told you about it?”

“Did you tell us anything before we entered your palace? Or even after?” Akira throws back at her.

“I barely knew any of you. You’ve been spending most of your free time since April with Akechi,” Futaba shakes her head and groans, “Ugh, this argument isn’t gonna get us anywhere anyway. Come on, lets go upstairs and discuss what you said earlier before someone walks in and overhears us.”

* * *

‘I can’t believe the police still haven’t caught those Phantom Thieves.’

‘There’s rumours going around that Akechi-kun knows their true identities. You think its real?’

‘The only one we can really trust right now is Shido-san, he’s the only politician who hasn’t let us down!’

‘Did you know that the Phan-site is still running? What a joke’

‘Honestly, Akechi’s the only one who can catch the Phantom Thieves. He’s the only one who warned us that they’re dangerous after all!’

* * *

Akira and Goro both lie awake in Goro’s bed later that night. Before he left, Akira was warned to be careful around Goro like he hadn’t been doing just that for the past two days. Although he was certain that if Goro had something in mind he would’ve done it long before Akira had become suspicious of him.

The boy next to him shifts around to lie on his side, now looking at Akira, “I’ve been wondering, what’s your persona?” Goro brings Akira out of his thoughts, “If I understand it correctly, a persona is the physical manifestation of one’s true self, yes?”

Akira hums, “I think so. It’s a little bit more complex for me… I have this ability which lets me use multiple persona’s. But I awoke to Arsene if that’s what you’re asking.”

Goro smirks, “As in Arsene Lupin? The gentleman thief?”

Akira rolls his eyes, “Yeah I know, the irony of it is not lost on me. Though I’m not the only one, Yusuke’s persona is Goemon. Everyone else’s persona’s are all people who somehow opposed authority too,” still lying on his back, he shifts his eyes to look at Goro, “So, what’s yours then?”

“You’ll find out tomorrow,” Goro turns to lie on his back again, and now Akira turns on his side and props himself up on his elbow.

“Oh no, you don’t get to be all mysterious now that I’ve told you. Is it someone embarrassing?” Akira grins, but Goro shakes his head.

“It’s nothing of the sort. However, if I tell you then I may just lose the moral high ground here.”

Akira smacks him lightly on the chest, “Now you have to tell me!”

“…its Robin Hood.”

Akira starts laughing and falls back to lie on his back again while Goro just shakes his head, “And I thought my persona was a little on the nose. I can’t wait to see your outfit now. Do you have a little hat with a feather in it?”

Goro climbs on top of Akira, straddling him, “No hat. I do have a cape, however.”

“Of course you do. Do you use a bow and arrow too?” Akira asks in the same joking tone as before.

Goro leans down and starts pecking Akira on the neck, “No bow, no arrows.”

“Are you trying to distract me to stop me from asking any more questions?”

“Is it working?” Goro asks without looking up.

“Maybe.”


	23. 10/29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Phantom Thieves break into Niijima’s Palace with the help of their newest member, Goro.

Goro walks through the gates of the courthouse ahead of all of the other Phantom Thieves. The dirty looks he seemed to be getting from Ryuji did not fly over his head, and he could feel the tension emanating from the rest of them.

_They must be worried that they’ll run into the true culprit. No need for concern, after all, I can be certain that no one will interfere._

“The courthouse is a casino,” he hears Ann point out from behind him.

“Everywhere else seems to be a normal cityscape,” he indulges her.

“Isn’t that the police station?” Yusuke asks and Goro looks behind him to confirm what Yusuke had just said.

Goro turns his back on the casino to finally look at the Phantom Thieves. Everyone, just as him, appeared to be wearing the clothes they had on just before they entered the Palace, “Our business is with Sae-san, is it not? It would be pointless for us to search the police station or any buildings that aren’t the courthouse for that matter.”

Ryuji nods, his previous glare dropping, “Yeah, don’t know ‘bout you guys but I’d prefer to avoid goin’ to the police while we’re here.”

The others seem to all agree with Goro and Ryuji as far as the hums of approval gave any indication, “We appear to not have changed our clothing. Does that mean that Sae-san doesn’t see us as threats?”

This was only the beginning, but it was increasingly annoying for him to act ignorant of the Metaverse. He’d visited it enough times over the past two and a half years to become an expert in all of it.

Everyone seems to look towards the cat who was the only one who’s appearance had changed, and Goro follows them.

_This is strange, why did the cat change while we all look the same?_

“Yeah, it must mean that anyone and anything outside of the courthouse must not be worthy of her attention,” Morgana nods and looks down at himself, “Wait, I always look like this! I’m special! Besides, I’m useless in my cat form!”

“Oh wait!” Futaba perks up, “Doesn’t he need a codename?” She points to Goro.

Goro raises an eyebrow, “A codename…?”

Makoto is quick to reply, “We all have codenames so that we don’t get recognised in the Metaverse.”

“Ah, that’s quite clever,” Goro asks, putting a finger to his chin in thought, “hm, just for reference, what are all of your codenames?”

“Skull.”

“Mine’s Fox.”

“We pretty much went with how we look, didn’t we?” Ann says.

Goro thinks over all possible codenames. If everyone had chosen their names based on their looks then he was relieved that he’d practiced using his Robin Hood persona earlier in the week and that he managed to manifest a completely different outfit from the one he wore whenever he summoned Loki, “Then… perhaps ‘Karasu’ will be best for me, you know, like a raven.”

_Perhaps that was a little on the nose. Well, it’s not like any of these people would get to see my alternate identity._

“Are your clothes all black or somethin’?” Ryuji asks, smirking.

Goro shakes his head, “The reverse, actually. After all, if these codenames are to hide our identities would it not make more sense for me to use a name that doesn’t hint at who I am?”

“I guess that’s true…” Ann trails off, “But you’d be the only Japanese-sounding one. What do you think, Akira? You’ve been pretty good with a bunch of our names, any suggestions?”

Akira looks surprised when everyone turns to him for his opinion, “Um… how about Crow?”

_Crow… that could work._

“Alright, from here on out you’re Crow!” Morgana announces, making the decision for him.

Goro fakes a smile, “Got it. Well then now that we have that out of the way, shall we make our way inside?” He, as well as the other Phantom Thieves now turn to Akira for guidance.

Akira nods, “Right. Queen, I want you to be on the front lines ready to heal us should we need it. Skull, I want you on passive support. Crow, you’re on front lines too, I want to see what you’re capable of. Everyone else keep your distance as usual,” finally, he looks to Futaba, “Oracle, I’ll need your usual guidance if we run into trouble.”

“You got it Joker!” She beams at him, and once everyone seems to be certain of what they’re tasked with.

Akira runs ahead, with Makoto and Ryuji following him closely. Quickly picking up on what Akira had meant, Goro runs after them, easily catching up to Akira at the front.

They all run up the stairs on the side of a building, and Akira leads them to leap over to the roof of the casino. He looks back briefly to make sure that everybody had made it across before continuing to the closest door. He opens it and everyone files inside, holding the door open for the person behind them.

As soon as they’re inside, everyone’s phantom thief gear appears with a blue flame, starting with their shoes and ending on their masks. Crow releases a sigh of relief when he finds himself wearing the white prince outfit, something that none of the Phantom Thieves seem to notice despite the fact that they were all staring at him, “This means that we’re being acknowledged as a threat, correct?”

He hears a smirk coming from behind him which seemed to originate from the Leader of the Phantom Thieves, “You weren’t kidding about the cape.”

“You plannin’ to steal stuff in that get-up?” Skull asks, and Crow sees everyone else smirking too. Not that he cared, after all this wasn’t his true form.

Mona makes an attempt to redeem his costume for him, “It’s what he thinks a rebel looks like.”

Crow shakes his head, “No, it’s what I believe someone who sticks to their justice looks like,” he explains, digging a deeper hole.

While everyone holds in their laughter, Joker has no such sense of shame, “Just wait till you guys see what his persona is.”

“S-shut up!” Crow stutters, blushing from with Joker’s comment.

_Dammit Akira, why do you do this to me?_

“All of that aside,” Noir begins, pointing down to the casino bellow them, “The people down there look completely normal, however we are certainly inside Niijima-san’s Palace.”

Mona skips over to the edge of the balcony they were on, “You’re right. It might mean that Niijima doesn’t actually have a distorted view of the people who are at the courthouse, but only with how the courthouse treats her.”

“Wait, we haven’t explained cognitive beings to Crow, have we?” Panther asks the others. Crow decides to speed things up instead.

“If I understand correctly from this context, regular people are normally part of the Palace rulers distortion, yes?” Crow asks, “And so you’re finding it quite odd that the cognitions in Sae-san’s are appearing as regular people.”

“Woah,” Oracle gasps, “Guess they don’t call you an Ace Detective for nothing, huh?”

Crow can’t help himself and grins at the compliment, “Thank you. However I must admit that it’s still a little hard for me to believe that this isn’t a real casino.”

Fox nods, “Yes, but we must still be wary of these cognitions even if they do look like real people, especially of those in high positions of power. We did have to fight cognitive beings in Futaba’s and Okumura’s Palace after all.”

Crow turns to the rest, “Do you go through this every time?” He asks, genuinely curious. All he needed to get through Palaces was his gun and decent enough accuracy.

Joker nods, “Pretty much.”

“In any case, we should get through here as quick as we can,” Morgana turns away from the edge and looks up at the Phantom Thieves, “We need to find the treasure and send out a calling card before you’re all arrested.”

“A calling card?” Crow asks, genuinely surprised, “So it’s not for show? It is a real step necessary in stealing a treasure?” He was starting to sound like an overexcited child. He needed to stop.

“Can we stop dilly-dallying and go already?” Queen asks impatiently. Crow clears his throat.

“My apologies, I’ve been holding us back here. I shall make it up to all of you in battle.”

“You better,” Joker replies and moves to get to the front of the team. In doing this, he passes by Crow. He stops when he’s right next to him and leans in, “Can’t wait to see your moves, princess,” he whispers.

“Hmph, you mock me but both of us know that only I could pull off this look,” Crow throws back.

Joker hums pleasantly, “That’s true, didn’t expect you too look so fine in something like this.”

“Oh my god!” Oracle groans, “Will you two stop flirting?! Let’s go!”

* * *

Upon returning to his attic room, Akira collapses on his bed. He should call Kawakami and get her to massage away his fatigue but that requires him to go downstairs and call her from the yellow phone and really was that much movement worth it?

His phone buzzes and just as he expected, it was the Phantom Thieves chat. He sits up and pulls out the phone.

> Shoulder Pads: **We should add Akechi to this chat.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **What? Why??**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **Because it’ll be so much easier than just me and Akira constantly communicating between the conversations.**
> 
> Inari: **She makes a good point.**
> 
> Alibabae: **True but at the same time do we really want him here?**
> 
> Beauty Thief: **Perhaps we should put it to a vote?**
> 
> Kitty Woman: **Yeah, I mean we vote on everything else.**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **No, it’s clearly not unanimous and I’m tired of repeating everything on both convos**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **Wait! Won’t he see all of this?!**
> 
> Alibabae: **No??? That’s not how chat’s work???**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **I’m adding him**

“You sure that’s such a good idea?” Morgana asks, having jumped up on his bed at some point when Akira wasn’t paying attention.

Akira nods once, “If Goro’s on the group chat then the others won’t mention that we’re suspicious of him. I doubt he’s paranoid enough to look through my messages but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

His phone had buzzed a few times since he turned to Morgana, and he goes back to the group chat, the cat looking over his shoulder once more.

> Alibabae: **Wait!**
> 
> Alibabae: **Lemme do something first.**
> 
> **_Futaba Sakura changed their nickname to ‘PC’_ **
> 
> PC: **If he’s really up to something, I don’t want him to know about Alibaba**
> 
> **_Akira Kurusu added Goro Akechi to the chat._ **
> 
> Goro Akechi: **Hello everyone, I assume this is how you all communicate when you decide to go to a Palace?**
> 
> Shoulder Pads: **We decided that it’s easiest if we just add you on here as well.**
> 
> Goro Akechi: **Understandable. I do have one question however…**
> 
> Goro Akechi: **Niijima-chan, why is your name on here ‘Shoulder Pads’?**
> 
> PC: **Ryuji thought he was great at picking our codenames and called her Shoulder Pads.**
> 
> PC: **That’s pretty much the same thing for everyone else.**
> 
> PC: **That or just some dumb name they were called at some point.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **I still stand by Abura-age!**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **But I guess even I can admit that Shoulder Pads was a dumbass suggestion.**
> 
> Kitty Woman: **Not as bad as Kitty Woman ;-;**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **You know you love me for it.**
> 
> Beauty Thief: **We should give Akechi-kun one too!**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **Yeah but all we had was Karasu but that sounds too normal.**
> 
> Vulgar Ape: **By our standards anyway.**
> 
> **_Akira Kurusu changed Goro Akechi’s nickname to ‘Pancakes’._ **
> 
> Kitty Woman: **Seriously?**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **Trust me, it totally works.**
> 
> Pancakes: **It would be pointless for me to argue this, wouldn’t it?**
> 
> Coffee Boi: **Yuuuup ;***
> 
> Pancakes: **Moving on**
> 
> Panacakes: **Today was truly one surprise after another. I hope we continue to thrive in our work together.**

From that point on, the Phantom Thieves only talked about the Palace for the entire duration of the Phantom Thieves chat. Just before he puts his phone away after the last message, he receives a text from Futaba.

> Goggles: **WHaT HaVe YoU DoNE**
> 
> Goggles: **hOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SHARE MY MEMES NOW**
> 
> Goggles: **HE’LL PROB BE SUPER CONDESCNEDING ABOUT IT**
> 
> Shakira: **Since when did you care about anyone’s opinion online?**
> 
> Goggles: **SINCE YOU ADDED HIM TO THE CHAT**
> 
> Shakira: **Okay think about it this way**
> 
> Shakira: **Don’t you think Goro is the kind of guy who would think memes are a waste of time?**

Akira already knew the answer to that. Goro would always roll his eyes at the bad puns and memes Akira showed him, but it never failed to get a repressed grin from him.

> Goggles: **Oh damn you is right**
> 
> Goggles: **MWUAHAHAHAHA**
> 
> Goggles: **NONE SHALL ESCAPE MY MEMEPOCALYPSE**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next day Futaba got a temporary ban on the group chat unless it was strictly Phantom Thieves related.
> 
> Now I’m back on track with posting, which will hopefully continue through to the final chapters of this part of the story.


	24. 11/18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira learns what Goro’s been hiding from him since the beginning. Even with his life on the line, Akira continues to reach out to Goro.

Akira walks over to the door of Café Leblanc as soon as Goro leaves it. He’d claimed that he had some business to attend to involving the SIU before they all go to the palace, but Akira had his own doubts about just how much of that was true.

He watches Goro walk towards the station and only turns away from the window’s in the door once Goro was out of sight, “He’s gone. I’ll let Boss know that we’re all meeting upstairs.”

Makoto nods, “Good idea, if Akechi-kun comes back then we can always have Boss inform us that he’s here. Make sure not to tell him anything though, okay? The less he knows, the better.”

While the rest of the group climb up to his attic room, Akira makes his way through the backstreets. Once Sojiro answers the door of his own house, it doesn’t take Akira long to get him to open the café and let him know if Goro had come back unannounced.

When he gets to the top of the stairs, he finds everyone in their usual seats in the room, his own chair empty and waiting. He sits down before motioning to Futaba, “Tell us what you got.”

Futaba has an uncomfortable look on her face as she pulls out her phone, “Luckily for us it doesn’t seem like Akechi calls a lot of people… but when he does it’s nothing good. I could only get half of the conversation – Akechi’s half – but even with only half of the conversation you can tell what he’s planning, and it’s much worse than any of us could’ve imagined,” she presses play, but skips over to the most important part of the telephone conversation. Once it’s ready, she increases the volume on her phone and puts it in the middle of the table.

“…if I had more time, then I promise you that I could convince their leader to disband their group for certain. None of them have any reason to go after you and so you would be free to continue to do as you please.”

There’s some static while the person on the other side responds, but it’s not too long before Goro speaks again.

“…I understand that leaving them alive is risky but surely killing them all is a little extreme don’t you think? .... Trust me, I am not underestimating you or the Phantom Thieves… of course… then I suppose for both of our sake’s I’ll have to dispose of their Leader. I contact you as soon as I come up with something.”

The conversation ends there, and Futaba brings the phone closer to her once again, “There’s more,” she says to stop anyone from reacting until they had heard everything.

She repeats the same motions as before until the others hear the next phone conversation Goro has with the stranger, “…we could say he stole the guard’s gun and committed suicide during his imprisonment… how about that?... yes, the guard will be one of ours. We’ll have to eliminate him after to destroy the evidence though.”

Futaba pauses the recording there, “The rest of it is mostly static, sorry I could only get that much.”

“It’s more than enough,” Makoto reassures her, “Thank you, Futaba,” she turns away from Futaba and looks directly at Akira despite her addressing the rest of the Thieves, “It’s just as I suspected, he’s been playing us this whole time.”

“No kiddin…” Ryuji says, “I thought he was just gonna have us arrested, not killed.”

Yusuke shakes his head, “No, not us. It’s obvious that he is only going after Akira specifically. Perhaps he believes that Akira is key to our operations… of course, he isn’t wrong in assuming that.”

_There’s more. In the first recording, there’s no way Goro wasn’t being threatened. Why else would his stance change so drastically. Besides, not everything he said were lies... right?_

“We can’t let him toy with us like this,” Ann speaks up decidedly, “We need to get back at him.”

Haru nods, “Yes, we must stop Akechi-kun at all cost.”

Makoto, still looking at their leader, nods to him, “Do you have anything to say about this? You knew him the most out of all of us, do you believe he’s truly capable of carrying out this heinous plan?”

Akira sighs deeply, “Honestly? I‘m not sure what to believe… But if he is going to kill me, then I don’t think its out of his own volition.”

“Are you serious?” Ryuji turns to him, “You heard what he said right? And about that guard too? He didn’t even hesitate when he suggested to off the guy!”

Morgana jumps onto the table, sticking closest to Akira’s end, “I think Akira’s right. There’s someone else pulling his strings. Even if we stop Akechi, there’s no telling that whoever he’s working for won’t just have someone else come by to kill Akira.”

Akira nods, “In the first conversation it seemed like Goro stopped the other person from having any of us killed, it almost sounded like killing me was some sort of compromise. I think he’s being threatened.”

The others all give each other hesitant, awkward glances that Akira doesn’t miss, “What?”

“Well…” Ryuji starts and Ann continues for him.

“Don’t you think you’re a little close to this? I mean, you told the guy you loved him after all.”

Akira frowns, “I can stay objective. In any case, we all agree that he’s working for someone, so we need to find out who. I might have a plan.”

“Please, enlighten us,” Yusuke encourages him, although Akira couldn’t help but think that if it came from anyone except Yusuke it would’ve sounded sarcastic.

Akira stands up to explain his plan, “I’ll talk to Goro tonight. I’ll try to convince him to properly join us and have him tell us who he’s working for.”

Futaba snorts, “And I thought Ryuji had bad ideas.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Akira asks, turning to Futaba. He turns to Makoto when she’s the next to speak.

“If you reveal to Akechi that you know about all of this he’ll start to question how you got your hands on such information. You’ll drive him away, and worse, may just end up getting killed then and there instead of later for knowing too much. We still can’t be certain of what Akechi is capable of.”

“Then I’ll only hint at it,” Akira continues, “But if you guys think it won’t work then we can always have a back up plan. I’m all ears.”

“Actually…” Makoto trails off, and Haru fills in for her.

“We concluded that there was a chance that Akechi would betray us already, and so we started working on a plan. It’s quite complicated and a little risky, however.”

“We’ll explain everything in a second,” Ann takes it from there, “But it mostly involves you getting Niijima-san to believe that the Metaverse exists and that you’re both really after the true culprit. Think you can do it?”

Akira smirks, sitting down, “I’ve gotten you all to join me, haven’t I? Alright, what’s this plan?”

* * *

Akira lifts his hand up to knock on Goro’s apartment door but hesitates. How exactly was he supposed to stop his boyfriend from killing him without raising any suspicions? Whatever lies Goro may have told him, he was still clearly perceptive and going to see him without first coming up with a plan of attack was idiotic to say the least.

Or suicidal if he really wanted to be more direct.

Just when he’s ready to tap on the door, he hears the lift doors down the corridor open, and the boy in question steps out from beyond them, “Akira?” Goro asks, walking over to him while pulling out his keys from his jacket pocket, “Shouldn’t you be getting your rest? We are going after the treasure tomorrow.”

“You’re awake too,” Akira rubs the back of his neck. _Not just awake, but suspiciously out late too._

Goro chuckles, “I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, but I have no work left for the time being and so I decided to cycle around the city for a little while,” he explains and opens the door, “I hope I didn’t make you wait too long.”

Akira steps into the apartment after Goro, now on the lookout for any signs that Goro was in fact the serial killer that the conversation made him out to be.

_He’s not an idiot. He wouldn’t exactly keep any evidence just lying around for me to find._

“Not at all, I didn’t even get the chance to knock yet, didn’t know you were out,” Akira reassures him. Before Goro could ask him any questions which he may have struggled to answer, Akira explains as much as he can, “Well, we’re going to the palace for one last heist and usually it’s ended in us getting into a big fight with the Palace ruler… I’m sure you can handle yourself but I still wanted to spend one more night with you before everything gets hectic.”

Goro smiles, but Akira knew it had to be fake, “There’s nothing to worry about, Akira. You and the rest of the Phantom Thieves are all formidable thieves and fighters, I’m sure you’ll have no issues in dealing with Sae-san’s shadow should the circumstances call for it.”

With how late it was, Goro doesn’t offer him any sort of food or beverage, but instead opts to take Akira’s hand and pulls him towards the couch. Akira sits down first, with Goro soon following suit. Goro turns his back to Akira, lifts up his legs up onto the couch and lies down, putting his head into Akira’s lap.

Akira doesn’t react for the first few seconds, until he starts stroking and combing his fingers through Goro’s hair. The boy in his lap closes his eyes and hums approvingly. He looked so peaceful, so innocent like this.

_Is he really capable of murder?_

“Hey, Goro?” Akira asks, breaking the couple minutes of silence the two had shared.

“Yes?” He asks, keeping his eyes closed.

“You know you can tell me anything, right? No matter how small, or big, or crazy or trivial it might be, you know I’ll always be here to listen to you, and help you in any way I can,” Akira treads carefully.

He almost expects Goro to smile again, but his expression reflects some kind of conflict he had inside of him. Could Akira’s previous theory of Goro being threatened be right?

“You really are worried about this Palace, aren’t you?” Goro asks rhetorically, “I’ve told you everything that I feel needs to be said, and if I haven’t then it must be something trivial enough for me to have forgotten about it entirely.”

Akira gives out an exasperated sigh, “Let me rephrase that then. I just want you to know that no matter what you say or what you do, I’ll always love you, and I’ll always have your back.”

This time, Goro smiles and opens his eyes, “I appreciate it, Akira, but you have to trust me. We will take Sae-san’s treasure, and once we do, I’ll find the true culprit and bring him to justice.”

Akira stops stoking his hair, “Aren’t you worried he’ll go after you? I mean you definitely haven’t been secret about how you think someone else caused the mental shutdowns.”

Goro lifts a hand to Akira’s face and moves a stray lock away from his face, “I’d like to think that I’ve gained enough training with you and the others to hold my own against him. Besides, didn’t you just say how you’d always have my back? Is this all it takes for you to dismiss that?”

Akira shakes his head, “Of course not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and for all of your wonderful support. Come back soon for the finale!


	25. 11/20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Was Akira able to change Goro’s heart?

“Well done on making it this far inmate.”

The Velvet Room, a place between dream and reality. No wonder he ended up here when he could barely stay conscious during the interview. Right now, Sae was most likely trying to get him to become responsive again. Akira could only hope that his own theory about time moving slower in the Velvet Room was true. He needed all the time he could get.

“It seems that you were unable to convince the traitor to remain on your side,” Justine reminds him.

If he was in the interrogation room that could only mean one thing. Goro had brought the police into the Palace. Akira had failed his mission.

But the game wasn’t over yet.

There was still hope.

And he had one more thing left to do.

“The effects of that drug are gonna wear off soon. This is your golden opportunity. You must grasp the truth that will save you from the brink of ruin.”

Akira tries to open his mouth, he tries to argue and say that there was still a small chance that Goro wouldn’t go through with his plan. Instead, he remains silent. The effects of the drug must’ve influenced his capabilities in the Velvet Room.

“The evil influence is fast approaching.”

“If you want to win this unreasonable game…”

“If you wish to take back your stolen future…”

“Recall the bonds you formed with your allies, and grasp the truth that will save you from the brink of ruin.”

The last thing Akira hears before he hits the ground is the sound of Igor’s laughter.

* * *

“I still can’t believe it,” Akira hears Sae saying when he opens his eyes again in the interrogation room. It seemed like she hadn’t even noticed that he wasn’t mentally present in the room since he’d finished recollecting the events of the past eight months, “but I now have a general idea of the methods you used for your crimes.”

Sae looks down at her watch once more and sighs, “my allotted time is nearly up, but I do have a suggestion. Would you care to strike a deal with me? If you cooperate with me, I may be able to lighten your sentence.”

Akira tries to answer her, but nothing comes out from his dry mouth. He swallows his spit and clears his throat, “What do you want?”

“You’ve failed to change my heart, there’s no denying that,” Sae states, forward and direct as usual, “You corrupted the order of this country and caused an uprising against it’s very existence. You’ll most likely be given life imprisonment or the death penalty, unless you accept my offer.”

Akira expected as much. Being falsely accused of obstruction of justice, blackmail, defamation, possession of weapons and multiple counts of manslaughter would result in that. This wasn’t his first criminal case.

“Tell me honestly whether these individuals are involved with the Phantom Thieves. First, a student at Shujin Academy, Ryuji Sakamoto. One of the victims of the Kamoshida case, Ann Takamaki. Former student and victim of the artist Madarame, Yusuke Kitagawa. The daughter of Wakaba Isshiki, Futaba Sakura. The daughter of the CEO of Okumura foods, Haru Okumura, and finally, the president of the student council at Shujin, Makoto Niijima. These are all the people who aided you in your crimes as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, correct?” Sae looks up at him from the folder where all of the names of his friends were listed.

Akira shakes his head, “I’ve never heard of them,” he lies.

“So you won’t sell out your friends,” Sae flips the page over which now provided her with a list of everyone that he’d gotten help from over these past eight months. Sojiro, Mishima, Takemi, Iwai, Yoshida, Kawakami, Ohya, Chihaya, Hifumi, Shinya, they were all there. The only way she’d know is if Goro had given her this list, “Very well, I’ll ask you a different question then. The Phantom Thieves operations would’ve taken a substantial amount of skill and tools to pull off. I can hardly believe that you would’ve pulled all of this off by yourself, so tell me, who else helped the Phantom Thieves? Did any of these individuals aid you in any way?” She turns the folder around and shows him the list of names.

Without reading it a second time, Akira looks into Sae’s eyes and shakes his head, “No.”

Sae takes the folder back and leans in her chair, “I see. So, you won’t talk about your teammates or your collaborators,” she fold her arms, “Finally, I’d like to talk about one more person, Goro Akechi. From your story it sounds like the two of you were quite close. There are reports that he was working alongside the Phantom Thieves as well. Even if that’s not the case, he must’ve known about your escapades as the leader of the group and failed to inform any officials working to capture you. Was he a part of your team?”

“Not Akechi.”

“So Goro Akechi wasn’t one of you, very well,” she sighs, “It’s clear that you have no intention of collaborating with me. It’s a shame that you won’t talk about any of them, otherwise your life wouldn’t be forfeit”

“I’m doing the right thing. It’s justice.”

Sae stands up and slams both of her hands on the table, “Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t decide such things!”

Akira looks up at her, the notion making him a bit woozy. The drug still had a little hold onto him. After all, not all of his memories had cleared up, “You call this justice?”

She sits back down, Akira’s eyes following her, “You’re implying that we have no evidence on you. You’re right, there’s nothing, and your fairy tale isn’t helping. All I want to do is ascertain the truth… and due to your strange story I don’t even know what’s right anymore!”

_Ascertain the truth? That’s right, Sae was no longer in charge of the investigation anymore, and yet here she was, the first person to really interrogate him._

_Why was she here?_

_Did she come here just to be at peace with herself?_

_No._

_Someone influenced her to get here._

Akira shakes his head. He needed to tell Sae something. It was important. It was going to save his life, “Don’t you want to win?”

“Huh?” She looks to him again, “That’s right, even if I get the truth from you I won’t be getting the credit for this investigation. After all, I had to call in some favours just to conduct this investigation.”

His mind clears once more, the effects of the drug completely wearing off.

He needed Sae Niijima on his side.

“Why are you here?”

Sae raises an eyebrow, “Why are you saying such odd things? Anyhow, I’d like to ask you one final question. Upon arrest you were told that you were sold out, might you have any idea as to who that could be?”

“I’m starting to remember.”

Sae gasps, “You’re starting to recall? Tell me everything!” She slams her fist onto the table, and Akira looks towards the phone.

“The true culprit. We tried to stop him and there’s still a chance that he won’t show. If he does, it’ll be right after this interrogation,” Akira quickly explains, “If he does, you have to show him the phone.”

Sae gives him a questioning look, “The phone? How will I know what he looks like? Unless…” she gasps again, realising that the person he was talking about was the same individual who was connected to everything, “You’re referring to him, aren’t you?”

Akira nods, “You have to trust me,” someone starts banging on the door from the other side, “It’s the only way we can get true justice.”

Sae picks up the phone, “My time’s up,” she stands up and hides the phone in her pocket, “I can’t even begin to fathom what you’re plotting, however, I hope that for all of our sakes, you know what you’re doing.”

She picks up the folder and leaves the room.

All Akira had left to do was hope that Goro Akechi wouldn’t come through the door in front of him.

* * *

Akira looks up from the table when he hears the door to the interrogation room opening. At first, a guard comes through, followed by Goro.

Goro.

He wasn’t supposed to see any of this.

Goro was supposed to be in the Metaverse.

The view before him shifts out of focus and he finds himself in the interrogation room, alone. Goro was in Niijima’s Palace still, only Akira could see glimpses of that world. The last time that happened was on his real first day at school after he’d been to Kamoshidsa’s Palace. Was this place just as distorted as the school? More importantly, would Goro see through the distortions?

Everything goes out of focus again and Akira sees Goro raising his gun. Next to him lay a dead guard, only a cognition, but it was enough to make Akira queasy. He looks back to Goro, who was fixing the glove in which he held the gun.

“For whatever it may be worth, I never lied about how I felt towards you… I’m sorry that it had to come down to this,” he cocks the gun, “You and your friends were vital to our plan, so I suppose I should thank you for that,” Goro turns and points the gun at Akira, point blank.

Through the hazy filter of the illusion, Akira looks past the gun and directly at Goro’s face. He notes that Goro’s trying his best to keep his expression blank, emotionless, but Akira knows better.

There’s pain behind the mask Goro was wearing.

“Case closed. This is how your justice ends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Under these circumstances, would Goro Akechi truly be capable of killing Akira Kurusu?
> 
> Well, you’ll have to find out in my next installment of this series, ‘We Could Have Been Great Rivals’, which I will be posting some time this week!
> 
> EDIT: so my laptop broke, irreparably, two days before my exams start so it may take me some more time to post the next part. I do have all of it already backed up on here, but I still need to edit bits and pieces so it may take me some time to post it. My exams are only two weeks long so I know I won’t be posting it any later than that but I apologise for that especially with the cliffhanger this chapter has.  
> I’ll do my best and try to keep my word about posting the second part when I planned to but I figured I should warn you all in case that doesn’t end up happening.


End file.
